Industrial  and  Vocational 
Education 


Industrial  (afi3) 
Vocational  Education 

Universal  (aticb  Self 
Sustaining 

(Pagan  versus  Christian  Civilizations) 
S.  H.  COMINGS 


SECOND  EDITION 

Revision  (§no5   Supplement  by 

Mrs.  S.  H.  (Lydia  J.  Newcomb)  Comings 


BOSTON 


Copyright,  1915 
BY  THE  CHRISTOPHER  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 


Dedicated 


TO  ALL  WHO  WOULD  SEE  THE  SUPREME  AMBITION 
OF  OUR  CIVILIZATION  TURNED  FROM  THE  EFFORT  TO 
DEVELOP  THINGS,  TO  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  HIGH- 
EST POSSIBLE  AVERAGE  TYPE  OF  MANHOOD  AND 
WOMANHOOD;  AND  TO  ALL  WHO  WOULD  SEE  LABOR 
SPIRITUALIZED,  AND  MAN*S  CREATIVE  ATTRIBUTE 
CHANGED  FROM  THE  IDEAL  OF  DEGRADATION  TO  THAT 

OF  COMMUNION  WITH  EACH  OTHER,  AND  WITH  THE 
INFINITE. 


.I.O.i. 


Introduction  to  Second  Edition 

I  HAVE  been  asked  to  write  an  introduction  to 
this  reprint  of  Mr.  Comings'  little  book  on  In- 
dustrial Education.  I  do  so  very  willingly.  In 
the  first  place,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  Mr. 
Comings  personally,  and  the  discrimination  to  esteem 
him  very  highly.  Through  a  certain  community  in 
our  educational  ideas  Mr.  Comings  was  moved  to 
write  to  me  and  later  to  invite  me  to  visit  him  at  Fair- 
hope.  This  must  have  been  at  least  eight  years  ago, 
that  is  to  say,  in  1907.  In  November  of  that  year  I 
found  it  possible  to  accept  the  invitation.  I  spent  a 
happy  week  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Comings  at  The 
Gables.  The  visit  was  timely — a  little  later,  and  my 
host  would  not  have  been  there  to  welcome  me,  and 
the  opportunity  of  knowing  him  would  have  been 
lost.  As  it  was,  his  health  was  already  failing.  But 
his  mind  was  alert,  and  his  interest  in  the  possibility 
of  self-supporting  industrial  schools  and  colleges  was 
eager  and  intelligent.  And  the  visit  was  timely  for  a 
second  reason.  During  the  week  of  my  visit,  Mrs. 
Johnson  began  the  Organic  School.  She  had  only 
three  pupils,  if  I  remember  rightly,  but  her  equip- 
ment was  superb — it  consisted  of  all  outdoors ! 

And  in  the  second  place,  my  willingness  to  write 
springs  from  the  fact  that  with  Mr.  Comings'  major 
thesis,  that  self-supporting  institutions  are  vastly 
more  desirable  than  endowed  institutions,  I  so  heart- 


8  INTRODUCTION 

ily  agree.  Given  the  choice,  I  should  hardly  have  used 
his  title,  Pagan  versus  Christian  Civilizations,  for  it 
seems  to  me  unduly  to  indict  the  one,  and  quite  as 
unduly  to  overpraise  the  other.  I  recall,  as  every 
student  must,  the  cheer  and  courage  so  freely  given 
by  many  a  sturdy  old  pagan  writer.  But  the  contrast 
which  he  implies,  as  between  industrial  exploitation 
on  the  one  hand,  and  a  moral  bread-labor  on  the 
other,  seems  to  me  very  well  taken.  It  marks  a  gen- 
uine and  just  distinction.  It  is  the  charge  which 
socialism  brings  against  every  capitalistic  order. 

In  turning  to  Mr.  Comings'  little  book,  the  reader 
must  value  it  for  what  it  is,  and  must  not  allow  him- 
self to  dwell  upon  what  it  is  not.  It  is  not,  for  exam- 
ple, systematic.  It  could  not  easily  claim  to  be  well 
arranged.  It  is  all  too  full  of  repetitions.  The  lit- 
erary style  is  not  always  good.  But  when  all  these 
defects  have  been  freely  admitted,  it  still  remains 
true  that  the  book  has  a  vital  message  and  that  it  is 
well  worth  reading. 

In  advocating  Industrial  Education,  Mr.  Comings 
kept  always  in  mind  the  sane  injunction  that  those 
who  work  should  think  and  those  who  think  should 
work.  It  is  in  this  union  of  action  and  thought  that 
moral  health  resides.  He  advocated  such  an  educa- 
tion not  alone  on  the  utilitarian  ground  that  every 
man  should  be  prepared  to  earn  his  own  living,  but 
on  the  larger  and  more  immediate  ground  that  hand 


INTRODUCTION  9 

work  is  itself  an  integral  part  of  any  true  education, 
and  that  only  by  making  education  self-supporting 
can  it  be  made  universal  and  can  the  burden  of  its 
support  be  lifted  from  the  bent  shoulders  of  those 
whose  labors  now  make  educational  endowments 
profitable.  Mr.  Comings  was  not  averse  to  endow- 
ments of  a  wholesome  sort,  but  to  be  wholesome  he 
felt  that  the  endowment  should  be  spent  in  creating 
a  practical  industrial  plant  through  whose  operation 
the  students  could  earn  their  own  living,  rather  than 
that  the  endowment  should  be  hoarded  in  the  shape 
of  dividend-paying  investments.  And  he  urged  this 
more  immediate  use  of  educational  funds  because,  as 
I  have  said,  he  had  the  insight  to  see  that  young  peo» 
pie  are  not  truly  educated  unless  they  are  taught  to 
combine  purposeful  activity  with  constructive 
thought;  and  because  he  had  the  humanity  to  realize 
that  it  is  a  very  unideal  arrangement  to  educate  one 
set  of  people  while  another  exploited  set  unwillingly 
pays  the  bills.  I  am  not  sure  that  Mr.  Comings  would 
have  called  himself  a  socialist,  or  even,  though  he 
lived  in  Fairhope,  a  single-taxer,  but  I  am  very  sure 
that  his  educational  teaching  is  very  sound  socialism. 
This  scheme  of  a  self-supporting  education  has  never 
been  realized.  It  may  be  that  in  the  secondary  schools 
it  would  not  be  possible  to  realize  it.  The  labor  ot 
children  under  conditions  at  all  ideal  is  not  highly 
productive.  But  I  am  led  to  believe  from  my  own 


io  INTRODUCTION 

large  experience  with  well-to-do  children  that  the  cur- 
rent plan  of  doing  everything  for  them  is  out-and-out 
unkindness.  There  is  a  wholesome  compromise  be- 
tween this  extreme  and  the  other  extreme  represented 
by  child  labor.  It  lies,  I  think,  in  having  children  do 
everything  they  possibly  can  for  themselves,  and  then 
every  day  something  of  real  service  for  the  gen- 
eral good  of  the  household.  The  economic  gain 
would  not  be  large,  but  the  moral  gain  would  be  tre- 
mendous. Even  the  economic  gain,  however,  would 
not  be  negligible.  It  would  be  the  negative  gain  of 
keeping  down  expenses,  of  reducing  the  number  of 
servants,  of  lessening  destruction.  All  that  is  needed 
is  to  mix  a  little  very  elementary  psychology  with  the 
plan  of  work.  Children  hate  to  do  things  alone,  hate 
to  be  told  to  do  things  that  they  do  not  quite  know 
how  to  do.  But  in  the  company  of  a  merry,  sympa- 
thetic grown-up,  who  both  shares  and  explains  the 
work,  a  child  not  wholly  spoiled  becomes  an  eager 
and  efficient  worker. 

My  own  boys  vary  in  age  from  ten  to  eighteen 
years.  Many  of  them  are  wealthy,  all  have  moderate 
means.  I  am  preparing  them  for  college.  But  if  I 
were  asked  to  name  their  greatest  need,  I  would  say 
unhesitatingly,  an  increased  sense  of  service.  Too 
much  has  been  done  for  them,  too  little  has  been  re- 
quired. If  I  return  to  the  planet  earth  in  another 
incarnation  I  pray  the  gods  to  send  me  into  a  family 


INTRODUCTION  n 

of  such  modest  means  that  I  shall  be  required  to  do 
my  full  share ;  or  of  such  unusual  wisdom  that  I  shall 
be  allowed  to! 

The  work  of  children  can  hardly  be  utilized  eco- 
nomically in  the  ordinary  secondary  school.  It  can 
helpfully  be  used  in  the  negative  way  already  indi- 
cated, to  keep  down  expense, — used  in  tidying  up  the 
rooms,  attending  the  fires,  making  minor  repairs, 
binding  old  books,  maintaining  and  beautifying  the 
school  grounds.  If  the  teacher  will  lead,  the  children 
will  follow.  The  better  field  for  children's  work  is 
at  home,  or  in  those  simple  residence  schools  which 
are  really  schools,  and  not  merely  money-making  ho- 
tels. It  is  even  possible  to  have  children  work  gain- 
fully and  to  do  it  wholesomely,  if  the  work  is  suited 
to  their  strength  and  is  carried  out  in  the  love  and 
shelter  of  a  family  group.  Many  of  the  operations 
of  farm  and  garden  are  within  a  child's  strength. 
The  objection  to  child  labor  is  not  to  child  labor  as 
such, — labor  is  wholesome  for  all  of  us, — but  to  the 
fact  that  the  conditions  are  extremely  bad  and  the 
hours  cruelly  long.  But  one  must  not  imagine  that 
the  cotton  mills  are  the  only  sinners  against  child- 
hood. Here  in  the  South  practically  every  plantation 
is  guilty  of  the  same  wrong.  Boys  much  too  young 
are  doing  heavy  plowing  and  other  farm  work  far 
too  severe  for  their  strength;  girls  still  mere  children 
themselves  are  turned  into  household  drudges.  In 


12  INTRODUCTION 

dealing  with  the  problem  of  child  labor,  we  need 
heart  and  imagination,  or  the  desired  golden 
mean  quite  escapes  us. 

The  secondary  schools,  by  emphasizing  the  value 
of  self-help  might  easily  constitute  a  desirable  step- 
ping-stone between  the  entire  irresponsibility  of  early 
childhood  and  the  proper  economic  burden  of  youth. 
The  secondary  school  might  be  made  a  fitting  vesti- 
bule to  the  self-supporting  industrial  college.  In  ad- 
vocating such  institutions  Mr.  Comings  has  been  an 
unconscious  follower  of  Tolstoy.  In  our  conversa- 
tions I  do  not  remember  that  we  ever  touched  upon 
Tolstoy;  and  in  the  little  book  before  me  I  do  not 
find  any  use  of  Tolstoy's  favorite  phrase,  bread-labor. 
But  the  spirit  is  the  same.  It  is  that  all  shall  labor 
in  order  that  all  shall  have  the  sanity  which  comes 
with  wholesome  labor,  and  none  shall  bear  the  dead- 
ening burden  of  overlabor.  Mr.  Comings'  scheme  of  a 
self-supporting  colleges  is  entirely  feasible.  It  has 
already  been  realized  in  part.  That  it  has  not  been 
more  fully  and  more  generally  realized  is  largely  the 
fault  of  the  teachers  themselves.  As  Emerson  long 
ago  said,  men  are  as  lazy  as  they  dare  to  be.  And 
teachers  are  quite  as  lazy  as  the  rest.  Mr.  Shaw's  biting 
epigram — Those  who  can,  do ;  those  who  can't,  teach — 
might  well  be  amended  to  read : — Those  who  will,  do ; 
those  who  won't,  teach.  It  is  an  unfortunate  attitude 


INTRODUCTION  13 

for  it  poisons  our  social  life  at  its  very  source, — in 
the  schools.  The  propaganda  for  the  social  mind  can 
never  be  very  effective  when  preached  to  adults 
whose  sedentary  habits  are  already  formed.  It  must 
be  preached  by  deed  as  well  as  by  word  to  the  young 
and  plastic,  whose  habits  are  now  in  the  making. 
The  moral  effect,  that  is  to  say,  the  social  effect  of  a 
self-supporting  college  would  be  extraordinary.  We 
may  well  advocate  it,  with  Mr.  Comings,  on  the  triple 
grounds  that  only  by  making  our  colleges  self-sup- 
porting can  we  make  college  education  universal ;  that 
only  by  spending  endowments  on  productive  indus- 
trial plants  can  we  support  our  colleges  without  ex- 
ploiting the  labor  power  of  unwilling  non-collegians, 
and  finally  that  only  by  mixing  productive  labor 
with  constructive  thought  can  we  truly  educate  this 
or  any  other  generation  of  young  people.  These  are 
telling  arguments.  But  overshadowing  them  and 
including  them,  as  the  whole  includes  the  parts,  is  the 
major  argument  of  all  that  it  is  only  in  our  schools 
and  colleges  that  we  can  hope  to  inculcate  the  right 
attitude  towards  labor  and  thought,  can  show  their 
unescapable  interdependence  and  can  so  lend  a  hand 
in  the  inauguration  of  the  Social  State. 

The  events  of  the  past  year  have  depressed  no  class 
of  persons  so  profoundly  and  bitterly  as  our  teachers 
and  preachers.  That  the  most  highly  educated  na- 
tion in  Europe  should  plunge  the  world  into  a 


14  INTRODUCTION 

hideous,  unnecessary  war  marked  by  unprecedented 
brutality  and  suffering,  calls  in  question  all  the  praise 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  lavish  upon  edu- 
cation. The  very  science  which  we  have  extolled  has 
become  the  agent  of  a  fiendish  inhumanity.  Personally 
I  was  gravely  tempted  to  give  over  teaching.  It  did 
not  seem  worth  while  to  educate  boys  if  when  you 
got  through  they  were  capable  of  such  profound  infi- 
delity to  the  human  spirit.  But  now  I  begin  to  feel 
the  inevitable  reaction.  These  tragic  events  do  not 
discredit  education.  They  only  reaffirm  with  titanic 
emphasis  what  I  have  so  long  known  and  tried  to  pro- 
claim, that  education  is  only  education,  is  only  the 
unfolding  and  perfecting  of  the  human  spirit,  when  it 
rests  upon  the  essential  foundations  of  Religion  and 
Economics.  These  are  the  two  things  that  count, — 
a  man's  attitude  towards  life,  his  religion,  and  the 
method  by  which  he  gains  his  daily  bread,  his  eco- 
nomics. Industrial  education  is  not  a  thing  to  take  or 
leave.  We  have  no  choice.  Nor  can  it  be  success- 
fully handled  without  ample  recognition  of  all  its 
social  and  spiritual  implications.  Mere  knowledge, 
a  scientific  mastery  of  matter  and  force,  has  been 
shown  by  this  terrible  war  to  be  a  thing  of  possible 
evil,  the  possible  enemy  of  civilization.  It  becomes 
beneficent  only  when  enlisted  in  the  service  of  the 
human  spirit.  Without  this  devoir,  this  divine  guid- 
ance, it  may  as  easily  lead  to  perdition  as  to  Heaven. 


INTRODUCTION  15 

The  quality  of  a  human  life  depends  upon  the  spirit- 
ual ideals  which  it  embodies.  It  is  the  same  with  edu- 
cation. 

C.  HANFORD  HENDERSON. 


Introduction  to  First  Edition 

I  approve  in  the  strongest  terms  your  proposal  to 
add  to  the  American  system  of  education  a  depart- 
ment of  Industrial  Schools  and  I  would  extend  this 
department  to  the  entire  system. 

The  hand  and  brain  should  be  educated  in  close 
companionship  and  no  class  of  the  students  should 
be  denied  the  inspiring  luxury  and  benefit  of  appro- 
priate tool  using. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  a  well  conducted  department 
of  Industrial  Education  would  prove  more  than  self- 
supporting,  but  if  otherwise,  the  needful  expense 
should  be  cheerfully  provided  as  demanded  by  every 
just  consideration. 

The  marvelous  success  of  the  early  public  school 
system  of  the  Eastern  and  Middle  states  was  largely 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  learners'  time  was  lairly  well 
divided  between  the  school,  the  shop,  and  the  farm. 
The  concurrent  education  of  the  hand  does  not 
hinder  but  greatly  helps  the  culture  of  the  brain. 

I  believe  we  are  on  the  eve  of  great  improvements 
in  the  whole  system  of  education  and  that  one  of  the 
foremost  of  these  improvements  will  be  free  indus- 
trial education. 

Sincerely  yours, 

CHAS.  C.  BONNEY. 


i8  INTRODUCTION 

We  extract  the  above,  a  most  fitting  introduction, 
from  the  last  kindly  letter  received  a  few  months 
before  the  death  of  the  great  souled  man,  whom  we 
dare  presume  to  call  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  most 
profitable  friends  of  a  lifetime;  a  man  who  had  at- 
tained to  the  highest  aristocracy  of  character  while 
retaining  the  most  democratic  sympathy  and  deepest 
interest  in  all  that  tended  to  uplift  humanity.  A 
former  educator  himself,  he  was  keenly  alive  to 
plans  for  progress  along  all  lines  that  shall  prepare 
the  people  for  a  higher  social  order. 

His  last  great  work  was  originating,  presiding 
over  and  being  the  moving  spirit  of  the  famed 
World's  Congress  of  Religions  in  1893  at  the  great 
Exposition  in  Chicago,  a  work  that  set  a  new  pace 
for  the  growth  of  the  ideals  of  human  unity,  and  his 
elaborate  history  of  that  wonderful  school  of  prog- 
ress is  a  gospel  of  highest  interest  to  the  race. 

S.  H.  C. 


Foreword 

"The  man  is  tho't  a  knave  or  fool, 

Or  bigot,  plotting  crime, 
Who  for  advancement  of  his  race 

Is  wiser  than  his  time." 

The  old  idea  of  human  progress  was  that  only  by 
slow  and  almost  imperceptible  steps  can  civilization 
evolve  to  its  highest  forms,  or  the  inherent  evils  of 
human  nature  be  overcome  and  a  highly  civilized 
society  be  developed  from  the  rudeness  of  barbaric 
ages.  Today  science  has  so  revolutionized  most  of 
our  early  concepts  that  we  find  many  of  the  things 
we  have  known  for  a  long  time  are  not  so. 

The  science  of  society  and  of  human  progress  are 
now  well  enough  known,  though  only  very  imper- 
fectly as  yet,  to  warrant  us  in  the  statement  that  the 
evolutionary  progress  in  social  growth  can  be,  and 
has  been,  most  tremendously  accelerated  by  well- 
known  means.  It  has  been  so  visibly  hastened 
through  the  influence  of  the  common  school  system, 
aided  by  the  mechanical  and  industrial  training  of 
frontier  necessities,  that  greater  progress  was  made 
in  two  generations  after  its  adoption  than  for  ten 
centuries  before. 

The  times  demanded  the  common  school.  Today 
the  times  demand  another  equally  important  step  to 
accelerate  the  evolution  of  social  progress,  to  pre- 


20  FOREWORD 

vent  decadence  and  to  keep  up  with  mechanical 
progress.  The  people  need  a  deeper,  broader,  more 
complete  education,  made  universal.  To  decree 
today  that  every  child  shall  go  through  college, 
an  industrial  college,  and  as  much  further  as  he  may 
choose,  is  not  as  radical  or  difficult  a  step  as  was  the 
decree  of  the  common  school  by  our  fathers,  and  it 
will  accelerate  social  advance  and  the  development 
of  character  fully  as  much  as  that  did  and  relatively 
will  not  cost  as  much  effort. 

From  the  data  we  now  have,  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion but  the  dominant  race  could  be  so  elevated,  so 
freed  from  tendency  to  crime  and  degeneracy,  so 
exalted  morally,  so  increased  in  industrial  efficiency, 
so  raised  in  average  intelligence,  that  within  a  very 
few  generations  all  would  be  fully  equal  to  the  very 
best  of  the  present  citizens  that  could  be  selected 
while  the  geniuses  and  superiors  would  tower  to  un- 
heard-of heights  of  moral  and  intellectual  worth,  a 
progress  that  is  now  only  thought  of  as  the  result 
of  centuries  of  slow,  continuous  growth. 

The  unfortunate  colored  race  could  under  proper 
conditions,  which  have  now  been  well  tested  and 
which  have  led  a  portion  to  such  striking  and 
marked  advance  in  the  forty  years  of  freedom,  be 
raised  to  a  very  fair  degree  of  civilization,  with  their 
superiors  attaining  to  high  positions  in  social  growth 
in  a  comparatively  short  period. 

S.  H.  COMINGS. 


Contents 


Page. 

INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION  FOB  ALL 23 

NATIONAL     GROWTH     OR      DECAY     DEPENDENT     ON 

PROGRESS    IN    EDUCATIONAL   MATTERS    ...  31 

THE  WIDE  CONTRASTS  IN  IDEALS 34 

PAGANISM    STILL    DOMINANT    IN    OUR    CIVILIZATION  37 

FROEBEL'S    IDEALS    AND    PHILOSOPHY           ...  39 

FROEBEL'S    PLANS    FOR    SMALL    SCHOOLS     ...  45 

MATERIALS   FOR   MECHANICAL   STUDY   ALL   ABOUT    .  50 

METHODS    FOR    THE    FEEBLE-MINDED    ....  50 

THE     UNFORTUNATE     RACES 55 

A    TEACHER'S    RESPONSIBILITY 57 

TEACHERS     BREAK    DOWN    PREMATURELY    ...  59 

EXAMPLES   AND   PRECEDENTS 60 

GARDEN    SCHOOLS 60 

SELF-GOVERNMENT 63 

GEORGE    JUNIOR    REPUBLIC 63 

PRIMARY     INDUSTRIAL     SCHOOLS 65 

SUBURBAN      CITY      AND      CONCENTRATED      COUNTRY 

SCHOOLS 66 

AGRICULTURAL     TRAINING 66 

THE    ELEVATION    OF    THE    RACES 72 

DRIFTING    INTO     TWO    CLASSES 77 

CIVILIZATION    IN   HAYTI   AND    SAN    DOMINGO        .         .  78 

THE    PITIFUL    FILIPINO    FARCE 81 

THE    CONTRAST    IN    JAMAICA 82 

ANGLO-SAXON    RACE    PRIDE 83 

THE   GREAT   OBERLIN'S   EXAMPLE 85 

THE    PEOPLE    MUST    MAKE    THE    CHANGE     ...  86 

TEACHING    BY    EXAMPLE 86 

PREVENTION     OF     CRIME 87 

THE    SLOW    AND    UNPRECOCIOUS 89 

ELEVATING   LABOR    VERSUS    DEGRADING    DRUDGERY  91 

EQUIPMENT  VERSUS   ENDOWMENT 94 

THE     UNIVERSITY— AN     INTELLECTUAL    AND    INDUS- 
TRIAL    CENTER         .          . 100 

THE    PROPHETIC    SPIRIT    YET    LIVES     ....  101 

CAN    COLLEGES    BE    MADE    SELF-SUPPORTING?    .          .  103 
"MAN   MORE   PRECIOUS   THAN   FINE   GOLD"    .         .          .112 

THE    FIRST    SELF-SUPPORTING    INDUSTRIAL    SCHOOL  113 

DOMESTIC   SCIENCE   AND    SERVICE 117 

SELF-SUPPORT    THE    BEST    EDUCATIONAL   METHOD    .  121 

HAND  TRAINING  AIDS  MENTAL  DEVELOPMENT   .  124 


THE    LAW    OF    HUMAN    PROGRESS 130 

AN  IRRIGATION  CITY  FOR  SURPLUS  LABOR   .         .         .131 

THE  WORLD-WIDE  FOLLY 133 

WHAT  WASTED  LABOR  POWER  COULD  DO  .  .  .  134 
THE  ARMY  OF  DISCHARGED  LABOR  ....  135 
THE  REMEDY  FOR  CHILD  SLAVERY  .  .  .  .137 

NERVOUS     AMERICANS 139 

THE  EDUCATOR'S   RESPONSIBILITY  ....       141 

MORE  FOR  SCHOOLS  AND  LESS  FOR  WAR  .  .  .142 
PLAUSIBLE  BUT  PERNICIOUS  SENTIMENTS  .  .  .145 
ARISTOCRATIC,  TYRANNICAL,  LITERARY  MEN  .  .  146 

THE    DEMOCRATIC    FORMULA 147 

THE  ENGLISH  "THINKER'S"  ENSLAVING  FORMULA  .  148 
AMERICA'S  FORMULA,  "WATERED  STOCKS"  .  .  150 
CANNIBALISTIC  CONCEPTS  CONTINUED  .  .  .151 
ESSENTIALS  OF  AN  EDUCATIONAL  SYSTEM  .  .  .152 
SUMMARY 154 

SUPPLEMENT. 

A  RETROSPECT  AND  A  FORECAST 157 

ORGANIC    EDUCATION 158 

SOCIETIES    OF    ORGANIC    EDUCATION        .         .  .  159 

WHAT    IS    ORGANIC    EDUCATION? 161 

VOCATIONAL    EDUCATION 164 

PROGRESS  IN  TEN  YEARS 167 

RUSKIN     COLLEGE 167 

THE    PRIMARY    PURPOSE 168 

AGRICULTURAL     TRAINING 176 

PREVENTION       OF       IMMORALITY       IN       OUR       HIGH 

SCHOOLS 177 

THE  ARMY   OF   THE  UNEMPLOYED 178 

A    RACE    OF    AMERICANS 179 

A   CHILD   CRY 181 

DAILY    PROGRAM    OF    THE    SCHOOL    OF    ORGANIC 
EDUCATION,  FAIRHOPE,  ALABAMA. 

KINDERGARTEN 182 

FIRST    LIFE    CLASS 183 

SECOND    LIFE    CLASS 186 

THIRD    LIFE    CLASS 187 

THE    HIGH    SCHOOL 188 

DOMESTIC    SCIENCE 189 

MANUAL    TRAINING 190 

THE  TEACHERS'   TRAINING   CLASS    .  190 


Industrial  and  Vocational 
Education 

(Pagan  vs.  Christian  Civilizations) 

INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION    FOR   ALL. 

"The  glory  of  thinking  is  in  work,  and  the  dignity  of 
work  is  in  thinking." — Ferguson. 

No  proposition  will  meet  with  more  general  ap- 
proval than  that  our  whole  educational  system  needs 
a  radical  reform  or  total  revolution. 

Herbert  Spencer  wrote  his  noted  essay  on  "Educa- 
tion" mainly  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  English 
system  a  scathing  condemnation.  Our  system  has  been 
copied  from  the  English  with  but  trifling,  if  any,  im- 
provement. 

Spencer  declares  that  in  accord  with  biological  sci- 
ence each  individual  should  be  educated  and  developed 
along  the  same  lines  that  the  race  has  been  developed, 
and  we  know  in  the  evolution  of  the  race  that  the 
hands  have  always  been  trained  before  the  head. 

The  prophet  Froebel,  who  saw  more  perfectly  than 
any  other  the  whole  philosophy  of  mental  develop- 
ment, would  begin  with  the  hands  in  the  Kindergarten, 
and  continue  this  hand  training  through  the  entire 
course  of  study,  teaching  the  hands  the  use  of  tools, 
and  the  head  mechanic  arts  in  advance  of  literary 
training.  We  have  only  touched  the  first  step  in  his 


24  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

scientific  plan  in  adopting  the  kindergarten,  totally 
neglecting  the  last  and  best  of  his  full  ideal. 

The  pagan  ideal  was  to  despise  labor :  the  Christian 
civilization  professes  to  exalt  creative  labor;  but  so 
tainted  are  our  social  standards  that  we  only  partially 
accept  this  ideal  and  our  schools,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  tend,  as  Spencer  said  of  the  English  sys- 
tem, away  from  labor,  and  to  produce  the  mental  con- 
cept of  a  labor  caste,  as  immoral  as  it  is  unscientific. 

It  is  a  radical  charge  for  present-day  educators  to 
admit  that  their  own  education  was  wrong  in  method 
and  defective  in  extent,  and  that  their  present  work  is 
really  a  failure  and  unworthy  this  scientific  age,  no 
matter  how  successful  they  may  be  in  getting  pupils 
to  recite  lessons  from  text  books.  Yet  there  can  be 
no  question  of  the  justice  of  this  charge,  and  from 
many  of  our  most  progressive  educators  and  thinkers 
come  sweeping  denunciations  of  the  present  system, 
but  with  no  accord  as  to  the  remedy.  It  can  be  found 
only  in  a  system  of  Industrial  Schools,  giving  to  every 
child  in  the  nation  a  complete  training. 

Memory  cramming  and  hand-neglecting  has  had  its 
day;  the  teachers  who  have  neither  skill  nor  tact  in 
handicraft,  nor  knowledge  of  mechanics,  will  be  pushed 
aside  by  those  who  have  developed  a  power  and  a 
pride  in  what  they  can  do  with  their  hands,  as  well  as 
in  purely  mental  achievements. 

An  eminent  educator  has  recently  declared  that  the 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  25 

training  of  the  hands  appears  to  have  an  almost  mira- 
culous power  to  bring  out  mental  activity,  develop 
character,  and  elevate  the  morals.  Another  admits 
that  our  universal  education  in  the  common  schools 
has  proven  a  partial  failure,  has  not  been  the  success 
expected  (what  wonder,  when  such  paganish  methods 
have  been  followed).  Yet  its  inception  was  a  won- 
derful upward  step,  it  set  a  new  pace  for  the  world's 
progress  and  needs  only  to  be  developed  still  further 
to  be  all  and  more  than  the  most  sanguine  now  expect. 

Another  educator,  equally  prominent,  declares  that 
our  whole  school  system  "is  top-heavy  and  imprac- 
tical, not  based  upon  proper  foundations,  and  will  soon 
topple  over  from  its  own  weight."  A  woman  promi- 
nent in  the  literary  world  declares  that  our  common 
school  system  should  be  called  "the  modern  method 
for  the  slaughter  of  the  innocents;"  that  it  is  a  harm- 
ful, nerve-straining  method,  and  does  not  prepare  for 
active  life  as  it  should. 

When  this  severe  arraignment  of  our  educational 
system  was  first  published  in  a  popular  magazine, 
there  was  a  very  wide  expression  of  indignant  denial 
of  its  justice  or  truth,  by  a  large  class  of  the  teachers, 
who  declared  there  was  little  or  no  ground  for  the 
accusation  that  many,  very  many,  children  were  seri- 
ously harmed  by  the  "forcing  process,"  and  the  long 
confinement  at  memorizing  study. 

In  one  school  with  which  we  were  familiar,  this 


26  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

denial  was  particularly  vigorous;  yet  in  that  very 
school  were  some  of  the  saddest  cases  of  entire  nerve 
breakdown,  some  even  among  the  colored  children  in 
the  effort  to  "pass"  to  the  high  school. 

Yet  so  very  conservative  are  most  of  the  teachers, 
so  sure  are  they  that  the  present  system  is  all  it  need 
be,  so  averse  to  any  change  or  innovation,  that  no 
words  of  appreciation  were  given,  no  effort  to  im- 
prove was  made  in  response  to  the  warning  from  this 
eminent  writer,  who  told  only  the  unvarnished  truth 
of  a  method  that  must  be  changed,  while  this  effort  to 
bring  in  a  better  condition  should  enlist  the  co-opera- 
tion of  all  educators. 

The  editors  of  the  magazine,  in  which  the  article 
was  published,  reported  they  had  so  many  letters  from 
parents  and  friends  of  the  injured  children  from  all 
sections  of  the  country  that  it  fully  vindicated  the 
indignant  writer  who  only  voiced  the  cry  of  suffering 
childhood. 

We  are  sure  our  suggestions  for  change  in  educa- 
tional methods  will  not  meet  the  approval  of  all 
teachers,  but  so  widely  and  enthusiastically  have  the 
propositions  of  this  little  volume  been  endorsed  by 
many  eminent  educators  and  able  friends  of  education 
that  we  can  with  a  fair  degree  of  equanimity  bear  the 
gibes  of  the  conservatives. 

"Pupils  have  to  unlearn  in  life  what  they  learn  in 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  27 

school.     They  should  be  trained  toward  the  activities 
of  life,  not  away  from  them" — Wendell  Phillips. 

There  need  be  no  argument  over  the  necessity,  the 
practical  value  and  the  moral  uplift,  of  general  hand 
training  in  our  schools;  the  present  trend  is  all  in 
that  direction.  The  rapid  introduction  of  weaving, 
basket  work,  paper  construction,  raffia  work,  etc.,  in 
all  the  most  progressive  schools,  is  a  marked  advance 
over  the  average  system  for  primary  instruction,  and 
is  along  the  lines  laid  down  by  Froebel,  whose  in- 
spired mind  best  understood  the  whole  philosophy  of 
the  mental  and  moral  development  of  children. 

But  in  our  colleges,  seminaries  and  universities, 
where  purest  science  should  have  its  best  expression, 
we  find  instead  the  most  persistent  adhesion  to  the 
old  and  oft  proven  unscientific  methods  of  memory 
cramming,  with  total  neglect  of  hand  training,  and  also 
the  taint  of  a  mental  labor  caste.  All  this  too  is  in 
complete  antagonism  to  the  suggestions  of  Spencer 
that  a  more  scientific  and  practical  education  not  only 
better  fits  for  complete  living,  but  for  higher  attain- 
ments and  enjoyment  of  all  that  is  ethical  and  esthetic 
in  life. 

To  prepare  for  the  higher  civilization  that  is  surely 
coming,  one  of  the  first  and  most  important  steps  is 
to  prepare  a  superior  average  order  of  people  by  the 
adoption  of  a  universal  system  of  free  industrial 


28  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

cation  which  shall  be  obligatory  upon  all  and  which 
will  develop  handicraft  training  as  of  first  importance, 
not  because  it  is  of  greater  material  benefit,  but  be- 
cause it  leads  to  higher  moral  and  spiritual  attain- 
ment and  is  along  the  natural  line  of  man's  growth  in 
mental  power.  A  noted  manual  training  expert  de- 
clares, "It  produces  a  new  and  superior  order  of 
people"  which  is  the  highest  conceivable  aim. 

Labor,  being  "a  portion  of  God's  own  creative  at- 
tribute beneficently  bestowed  upon  man,"  must  be  cul- 
tivated as  one  of  His  highest  gifts,  and  only  by  so 
doing  can  man  be  raised  to  his  best  estate. 

The  remark  is  often  made  that  our  social  progress 
does  not  keep  pace  with  our  mechanical  progress.  The 
schools  should  set  the  pace  and  prepare  the  way  for  all 
upward  growth.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  social  re- 
form should  not  lead  and  surpass  all  mechanical 
achievements.  When  all  the  people  are  exalted  to  a 
higher  average  of  mental  power,  as  they  so  easily  can 
be,  the  geniuses  of  such  an  age  will  tower  to  un- 
dreamed-of heights. 

Froebel  thought  his  philosophy  so  far  in  advance  of 
his  time  that  it  would  require  a  couple  of  centuries  for 
the  world  to  come  to  see  the  value  of  it;  but,  owing 
to  the  world-wide  adoption  of  the  common  school  and 
through  this  the  more  universal  intelligence  of  the 
people,  we  have  in  a  few  decades  come  to  see  and 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  29 

accept  his  teachings;  and  now  we  need  only  to  in- 
troduce the  best  methods  for  bringing  to  pass  what 
he  saw  was  so  important,  viz.:  to  train  hands,  head 
and  heart  at  the  same  time. 

In  the  low  estimate  of  human  life  and  the  willing- 
ness to  sacrifice  it  for  selfish  aims  do  we  see  the  most 
radical  persistence  of  paganism;  and  the  willingness 
of  modern  society  to  keep  a  large  portion  of  our  work- 
ers in  ignorance  and  degradation,  like  our  coal  min- 
ers, factory  slaves  and  slum  dwellers,  is  a  sure  sign 
of  the  survival  of  pagan  cruelty. 

The  Christ  came  to  "set  prisoners  free"  to  "break 
the  chains  of  those  who  are  bound"  What  prisoners 
need  His  freeing  hand  and  chain-breaking  love  as  do 
the  prisoners  of  ignorance,  ignorant  of  their  own 
native  powers? 

Until  every  child  is  set  free  to  use  with  skill  his 
creative  power  of  hand  and  head,  it  has  not  had  the 
benefit  of  any  properly  called  Christian  civilization. 

The  most  important  work  for  any  nation  is  the 
education  of  its  own  citizens.  If  this  truth  could  once 
permeate  our  civilization;  if  we  could  believe  that 
people  are  worth  more  than  things;  if  we  could  get 
away  from  the  accursed  paganism  of  treating  men  and 
women,  boys  and  girls,  as  mere  tools  with  which  to 
make  money,  or  as  servants  for  the  few ;  if  we  could 


30  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

see  the  hideous  wrong  and  sin  of  war,  and  see  that, 
instead  of  lavishing  millions  on  warships,  gatling  guns 
and  riot  arms  it  would  be  infinitely  better  to  spend  it 
on  education ;  if  we  could  see  that  to  develop  a  higher 
average  of  citizenship  is  the  highest  ambition  for  a 
nation,  then  might  we  in  truth  conquer  and  lead  the 
world  to  the  highest  ideal  of  democracy. 

"Americanism  shall  permeate  the  world!' 

—Stead. 

"To  be  a  true  American,  is  to  be  a  citizen  of  the 
World!" 

— Ferguson. 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  LABOR. 

"This  is  the  Gospel  of  Labor- 
Ring  it  ye  bells  of  the  kirk! 

The  Lord  of  love 

Came  down  from  above, 
To  live  with  those  who  work. 

This  is  the  rose  He  planted, 
Here  in  the  thorn-cursed  soil, 

Heaven  shall  be  blest 

With  perfect  rest, 
But  the  best  of  earth  is  toil.'' 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  31 

NATIONAL  GROWTH  OR  DECAY  DEPENDENT  ON  PROGRESS 
IN  EDUCATIONAL  MATTERS. 

"My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work." 

— The  Christ. 

Pagan  civilizations  have  been  neither  scientific  nor 
democratic,  but  have  instead  been  either  transient  or 
non-progressive. 

A  true  Christian  civilization  would  be  thoroughly 
scientific  and  democratic,  progressive  and  permanent. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  professing  to  be 
Christian,  is  really  so  tainted  with  paganism  that  it 
cannot  be  permanent  unless  this  taint  is  removed. 

Along  no  other  line  is  the  contrast  more  sharply  de- 
fined between  the  unscientific  nature  of  the  old  pagan 
civilizations  and  the  practical  nature  of  a  real  Christ- 
ian civilization  than  in  the  differing  concepts  in  re- 
gard to  the  dignity  and  honor  of  skilled  creative  labor 
and  the  merit  of  personal  service. 

To  the  old-time  pagan  the  honor  and  nobility  of 
skill  in  labor  that  should  serve  his  kind  was  an  abso- 
lutely unthinkable  proposition:  he  could  not  conceive 
it.  Whether  he  belonged  to  the  Greek  or  Roman  cult 
or  to  the  less  cultured  nations,  his  idea  of  honor  and 
employment  was  war,  to  kill  and  destroy;  all  needful 
labor  and  personal  service  must  be  performed  by  a 
slave,  a  human  beast  of  burden. 


32  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

This  through  long  ages  has  been  the  only  concept 
and  it  has  led  to  the  neglect  and  degradation  of  the 
toilers,  the  real  wealth  producers  and  creators,  and  to 
the  inevitable  decay  of  national  life  and  civilization. 

In  the  Greek  Republic,  though  they  had  high  ideals 
of  liberty  for  the  favored  classes  and  the  state  cared 
for  their  education  and  training,  they  looked  with 
contempt  on  labor,  and  the  inevitable  blight  of  luxuri- 
ous profligacy  came  to  hands  untaught  in  useful  serv- 
ice. The  saving  science  of  the  union  of  skill  in  handi- 
craft and  in  mental  culture  was  neglected;  and  sure 
decay  came  to  the  Republic,  in  spite  of  its  intellectual 
development,  as  it  had  come  to  all  previous  civiliza- 
tions, and  will  come  to  all,  to  the  end  of  time,  who 
neglect  this  science.  There  can  be  no  exceptions  to 
this  unvarying  rule.  It  is  an  inherent  principle  of 
human  life. 

The  Christ,  the  teacher  of  a  divine  social  order, 
came  as  a  toiler,  a  creator  of  homes  among  an  indus- 
trious people.  In  Him  were  concentrated  and  exem- 
plified all  the  democratic  ideals  of  all  the  poets,  pro- 
phets and  sages  from  Moses'  time  down.  He  taught 
the  essentials  of  a  scientific  social  order;  He  chose 
His  teachers  and  preachers  of  the  new  social  ideal 
from  the  laboring  classes. 

He     gave     the     keynote     to     his     ideal     in     one 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  33 

terse  sentence,  "My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I 
work." 

At  the  tragic  climax  of  His  pathetic  career,  by  a 
sacrament  of  ineffable  tenderness  He  taught  His  fol- 
lowers for  all  time  that  in  loving,  useful,  personal 
service  to  their  kind  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  menial 
ministry;  but  that  the  noblest  and  greatest,  the  high- 
est and  most  honored,  the  really  most  aristocratic  and 
exalted,  are  they  who  can  serve  most  and  best.  A 
most  difficult  lesson  for  humanity  to  accept  then  and 
now,  but  a  fact  of  most  momentous  importance  in 
the  science  of  social  or  national  permanence. 

In  His  immortal  parable  of  the  "Good  Samaritan" 
He  showed  beyond  the  possibility  of  cavil  that  the 
hand  of  him  who  serves  in  time  of  need  is  the  hand 
of  a  brother  indeed,  worthy  of  all  honor  and  love; 
that  to  neglect  those  who  need  our  ministry  or  who 
do  our  work  is  a  violation  of  the  ethical  laws  of  life, 
and  that  much-neglected  lesson  that  we  are  our  broth- 
er's keeper  was  renewed.  According  to  the  "Christ 
Ideal''  we  have  in  the  modern  industrial  world  a 
"Jericho  Road"  of  economic  wrong  that  forces  boys 
and  girls  to  bread-winning  before  they  have  had  proper 
or  adequate  training  to  develop  their  mental,  moral, 
or  physical  powers ;  and  along  this  road  are  thousands 
lying  robbed,  wounded  and  helpless,  waiting  the 
ministry  of  the  coming  "Good  Samaritan"  who  will 
perforce  give  them  the  needed  mental  and  handicraft 


34  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

training  to  make  them  citizens  worthy  of  the  coming 
age. 

The  transforming  power  of  this  lofty  ideal  of  the 
honor  of  service  among  the  immediate  followers  of 
the  Christ's  new  social  order  was  strikingly  exempli- 
fied in  the  remarkable  change  in  St.  Paul  from  the 
haughty,  idle  and  supercilious  Pharisee  to  the  indus- 
trious tent-maker  and  preacher  of  the  new  social  ideal 
of  universal  brotherhood,  working  with  his  hands  for 
needful  support,  that  he  might  be  independent  of  all 
men  while  preaching  so  radical  a  social  change.  It 
was  a  most  impressive  lesson  for  all  people  and  for 
all  times.  It  was  the  highest  and  most  scientific  up- 
lift of  human  ideals.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the 
end  of  the  old  false  pagan  ideal  in  regard  to  the 
servility  or  dishonor  of  labor  and  personal  service. 

THE  WIDE  CONTRASTS  IN  IDEALS. 

Yet  today,  with  all  our  supposed  advance  in  science 
and  our  regard  for  Christian  ideals,  we  may  well  be 
startled  by  the  persistence  and  dominance  of  pagan 
social  ideals  in  so  many  forms;  and  our  labor  con- 
cepts are  among  the  worst.  With  the  persistence  of 
chattel  slavery  until  a  very  recent  date,  among  all 
so-called  "Christian  nations"  has  persisted  the  base 
and  pernicious  idea  of  the  lowly  nature  of  personal 
service  and  creative  labor,  and  the  equally  pernicious 
and  purely  pagan  idea  that  there  is  honor  or  "style" 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  35 

in  useless  idleness,  instead  of  actual  disgrace  and 
danger  and  ever  increasing  unhappiness,  which  is  the 
scientific  and  unchanging  fact,  as  true  in  the  mansion 
as  in  the  cabin. 

It  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  appreciate  at  once  the 
infinite  gulf  that  separates  the  false  pagan  ideal  in 
regard  to  labor  from  the  lofty  and  scientific  Christian 
ideal,  as  so  impressively  interpreted  by  that  great  seer 
of  education,  the  immortal  Froebel,  whose  name  shall 
stand  in  future  ages  beside  those  of  Isaiah  and  St. 
Paul  among  the  illumined  souls  inspired  to  point  the 
upward  path  of  humanity.  "Labor,"  he  tersely  de- 
clared "is  a  portion  of  God's  creative  attribute  bene- 
ficently bestowed  upon  man!' 

If  this  profound  and  revolutionary  philosophy  is 
essentially  correct,  as  we  deem  it  to  be,  then  how 
fundamentally  important  it  is  that  this  divine  attribute 
be  cultivated  and  developed  to  its  utmost  extent,  how 
sacreligious  not  to  do  so,  how  wicked  to  neglect  the 
Godlike  gift,  and  how  vastly  different  this  ideal  on 
which  to  build  a  civilization  from  the  pagan  concept 
of  the  disgrace  of  labor;  and  how  little  wonder  that 
pagan  civilizations  went  down  or  failed  to  become 
progressive  and  democratic  when  demoralized  by  such 
an  unscientific  ideal.  All  history  of  all  nations,  ages 
and  individuals  proves  that  in  the  moral  virtues  of 
patriotism  and  altruism  the  immortals  whose  examples 
and  teachings  have  helped  the  race  upward  and  for- 


36  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

ward  have  been  those  whose  hands  have  been  trained 
in  creative  labor  and  useful  service ;  while  everywhere 
and  at  all  times,  from  Solomon's  time  down,  the  vices 
and  follies  and  profligacies  that  have  destroyed  in- 
dividuals and  nations  have  come  almost  wholly  from 
the  idle  and  those  whose  hands  have  not  been  trained 
to  labor. 

Will  any  candid  mind  dare  deny  that  we  have  estab- 
lished the  pagan  ideal  of  a  labor  caste  in  our  social 
standards,  or  that  in  our  institutions  of  higher  educa- 
tion the  tendency  is  away  from  labor  and  towards  the 
pagan  concept  of  a  disgrace  in  labor,  and  that,  as  a 
natural  consequence,  most  of  our  teachers,  preachers 
and  missionaries  go  forth  still  farther  to  spread  this 
baneful  idea,  this  disintegrating  heresy,  this  immoral, 
because  unscientific,  standard?  No  doubt  this  false 
concept  has  also  been  strengthened  by  the  theological 
dogma  that  all  labor  is  a  curse,  instead  of  an  exalt- 
ing, Godlike  attribute;  it  has  been  most  tremendously 
exaggerated  of  late  by  the  false,  shoddy  ideals  of  a 
spurious  aristocracy  of  money  without  culture ;  and 
one  of  the  most  serious  problems  of  our  civilization 
is  how  to  remove  this  root  of  the  upas  tree  of  pagan 
folly  and  re-establish  the  true  concept  as  the  basis  of 
our  civilization.  It  is  not  a  light  task,  but  one  that 
will  tax  to  the  uttermost  the  formative  forces  of  a 
new  educational  system. 

We  believe  it  can  only  be  done  by  beginning  a  new 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  37 

system  in  a  new  type  of  colleges  and  universities, 
working  on  a  new  basis,  and  with  essentially  new 
ideas.  The  older  ones  are  too  conservative,  too  set 
in  conventional  methods.  It  is  too  hard  for  educa- 
tors Jo  admit  that  their  own  education  was  incom- 
plete in  quantity  or  imperfect  in  method,  or  that  their 
present  methods  can  be  radically  improved  upon.  It 
is  a  common  belief  that  of  all  conservatives  the  aver- 
age educator  is  most  conservative ;  so,  like  all  re- 
forms, what  we  dare  plead  for  must  come  from  a 
demand  of  practical  people,  aided  as  it  will  be  by  many 
of  tlie  progressive  teachers  and  prominent  educators 
who  have  seen  the  wrong  of  the  present  system,  even 
as  the  great  philosopher  Spencer  saw  it  so  long  ago. 

"All  great  reforms  must  come  up  from  the  common 
people." — Ancient  Egyptian  Proverb. 

PAGANISM   STILL  DOMINANT  IN  OUR  CIVILIZATION. 

"More  has  been  given  to  us  than  to  any  people  here- 
tofore, and  therefore  more  is  required  of  us.  Civili- 
zation as  it  progresses  requires  a  higher  conscience,  a 
wider,  loftier,  truer  public  spirit.  Failing  these,  civili- 
zation must  pass  into  destruction." — Henry  George. 

To  many  it  will  seem  a  startling  and  unwelcome 
thought  that  our  civilization  is  still  largely  tainted  with 
pagan  concepts  and  standards ;  but  remember  it  was 
the  profound  philosopher,  Herbert  Spencer,  who  made 


38  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

this  indictment  against  the  English  system  of  educa- 
tion, and  ours  has  been  an  essential  copy  of  theirs, 
and  if  pagan  ideals  have  been  found  in  such  high 
places  as  colleges  and  universities,  how  sure  may  we 
be  to  find  them  permeating  all  our  civilization,  as  we 
do  when  we  carefully  analyze  the  lack  of  scientific 
basis  for  so  many  long-established  social  customs. 

For  example,  we  have  continued  chattel  slavery 
in  most  so-called  Christian  nations  until  a  most  recent 
date,  a  purely  pagan  custom.  Our  child  wage  slavery 
is  but  a  slight  modification  of  the  same.  War,  too,  and 
all  its  accompaniments,  is  purely  pagan  and  barbaric 
in  the  extreme,  utterly  out  of  place  in  an  age  of  sci- 
entific democracy.  Ernest  Crosby  shows  quite  con- 
clusively that  the  silly,  childish  vanity  of  the  savage 
manifested  by  his  love  of  war  paint  and  feathers  finds 
its  persistent  duplicate  in  the  present-day  arrogance 
of  the  soldier  when  ornamented  with  brass  buttons, 
shoulder  straps  and  the  unspeakably  silly  pomp  of 
military  regalia;  and  he  shows  that  the  Peace  Society 
or  the  great  Czar  need  only  do  away  with  this  relic 
of  pagan  folly  to  stop  at  once  all  wars,  that  our  hate- 
ful army  and  navy  would  vanish  like  morning  dew, 
if  simply  deprived  of  their  showy  dress,  the  remains 
of  the  weakest,  silliest  expression  of  a  childish  savage. 

We  find  this  strange,  persistent  love  of  gewgaws, 
war  paint  and  feathers  so  adhering  to  all  forms  of 
military  service  that  not  even  a  Sunday  school  "Boy's 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  39 

Brigade"  nor  the  military  drill  for  exercise  in  our 
schools  can  be  had  without  the  brass  buttons,  shoulder 
straps  and  striking  dress. 

Let  us  carry  the  Crosby  philosophy  one  step  further 
and  decree  that  those  who  study  the  art  of  human 
butchery  shall  wear  the  uniform  of  the  butchers  in 
our  slaughter  houses  and  abattoirs,  the  blue  denim 
overalls  and  blouse,  and  we  may  be  sure  our  paganish 
army  and  navy  would  not  hold  together  a  month. 

In  the  use  of  jewelry  and  glaring  dress  and  oft- 
changing  fashion  we  see  again  the  strange  persistence 
of  paganism.  In  medicine  and  religion  we  dare  not 
enumerate  the  evidences  of  pagan  hoodoo  and  dog- 
matic superstition.  We  fear  it  taints  these  streams 
also  and  needs  the  light  and  help  of  a  more  scientific 
system  of  education  whose  chief  corner-stone  shall  be 
creative  skilled  labor. 

FROEBEL/S    IDEALS   AND   PHILOSOPHY. 

"Man  must  be  doing  something,  for  in  him  throbs 
the  creative  impulse." — Henry  George. 

"No  high  degree  of  morals  can  be  established  or 
maintained  without  manual  labor." — Froebel. 

It  seems  unaccountable  that  such  deference  has 
been  paid  to  the  great  educator,  Froebel,  and  yet  so 
little  known  of  the  breadth  of  his  philosophy  of  a 
complete  educational  system,  of  which  the  kindergar- 


40  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

ten,  beneficent  as  it  is,  is  only  the  A,  B,  C.  In  his 
ideal  thevcarrying  forward  of  a  system  of  handicraft 
training  through  all  the  subsequent  processes  of  edu- 
cation was  fully  as  essential  as  was  the  kindergarten 
for  the  first  step.  He  looked  upon  man  as  essentially 
a  creator,  and  the  development  of  his  creative  facul- 
ties as  a  necessary  part  of  his  education.  He  declared 
that  it  was  of  but  little  use  to  develop  the  receptive 
powers  of  the  brain,  without  at  the  same  time,  and  as 
a  necessary  reflex  action,  developing  the  active  and 
formative  powers  of  the  mind. 

He  made  skilled  labor  a  part  of  morality  and  reli- 
gion, the  culture  of  the  creative  attribute  a  portion 
of  spiritual  growth.  He  would  look  with  horror  at 
attempts  at  race  elevation  by  storing  the  memory 
with  facts  and  literary  concepts,  while  neglecting  to 
develop  the  creative  powers  of  brain  and  skill  of 
hand.  He  would  follow  the  pathway  of  all  race 
progress  with  each  individual  of  every  race:  first 
cultivating  the  hand  to  do;  then  the  brain  to  remem- 
ber how  and  why. 

To  express  one's  self  and  to  develop  one's  self  by 
creative  skill  of  the  hands  was  with  him  a  foundation 
principle;  and  we  shall  never  develop  the  able,  all- 
round  faculties  of  our  citizenship  until  we  absorb 
and  imitate  his  profound  philosophy. 

The  able  educator,  Hughes,  justly  declares  that 
English  and  American  educators  have  gone  as  far 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  41 

as  possible  from  his  theory,  and  are  slowly  and  pain- 
fully coming  to  see  the  wisdom  and  necessity  of 
more  closely  following  his  plans.  The  results  have 
been  pitiful  enough  with  the  white  race,  but  most 
disastrous  with  the  unfortunate  races;  and  harm 
instead  of  good  has  been  done  to  thousands  of  vic- 
tims of  ill-directed  philanthropy  by  a  false  method 
of  education. 

In  his  able  analysis  of  Froebel's  Laws  of  Educa- 
tion he  devotes  a  long  and  most  interesting  chapter 
to  the  value  of  play  as  an  educational  force,  full  of 
most  practical  suggestion.  And  we  deem  it  but  a 
portion  of  the  philosophy  of  handicraft  training  in 
developing  the  all-round  character  and  ability  for 
complete  living.  It  is  a  portion  of  Froebel's  teach- 
ing that  as  yet  has  not  had  one  tenth  the  attention 
it  deserves.  And  we  are  sure  that  differing  types  of 
play  are  but  the  preparation  for  differing  social 
ideals. 

There  are  plays  that  represent  the  co-operative 
and  emulative  ideal  as  well  as  those  that  belong  to 
competitive  and  destructive  ideals  of  social  life.  In 
the  emulative  play,  success  is  gained  by  skill,  activity 
and  alertness,  which  does  not  tend  at  all  to  harm 
those  who  do  not  win;  while  in  the  competitive  play, 
as  in  business,  it  is  the  idea  to  down  the  opponent, 
with  cruel  force  if  need  be,  to  risk  life  and  limb  to 
wrest  from  him  the  prize  at  any  cost;  which  sug- 


42  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

gests  the  wide  difference  in  morals  between  compe- 
tition and  emulation. 

In  industrial  training,  up  to  a  certain  point,  are 
found  many  of  the  benefits  Froebel  saw  in  properly 
directed  play.  It  is  only  a  question  of  how  much  of 
each  is  best.  In  manual  training  schools  it  has  been 
found  that  pupils  will  often  voluntarily  leave  play 
for  practice  in  the  workroom. 

The  recent  establishment  of  an  organized  system- 
atic public  playground  in  the  city  of  Syracuse  is  but 
one  of  the  steps  in  the  development  of  this  great 
ideal  of  progress.  Children  should  be  guided  and 
directed  in  this  as  in  school  or  work. 

If  we  would  only  come  to  see  that  the  production 
and  development  of  superior  citizens  is  the  grandest 
aim  of  civilization,  how  these  different  problems 
would  be  worked  out,  even  as  were  the  improvement 
of  the  engine,  press  and  auto,  each  having  the  in- 
tensest  study  of  the  ablest  mechanical  minds.  We 
need  a  touch  of  Isaiah's  prophetic  conception  of  the 
time  when  "A  man  shall  be  more  precious  than  fine 
gold." 

Froebel's  great  advance  over  the  methods  of 
Pestalozzi  was  in  the  discovery  that  the  receptivity 
of  the  brain  of  a  child  must  be  followed  or  accom- 
panied by  a  corresponding  activity  of  the  hand. 
When  a  new  idea  is  presented,  it  must  do  something 
with  its  hands  or  create  something  to  correspond 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  43 

with  the  concept  of  the  mind,  to  get  its  full  or  Ap- 
proximate value.  It  was  a  fundamental  discovery 
and  has  a  most  tremendous  practical  bearing  on 
race  elevation  as  well  as  on  individual  training. 

Pestalozzi  would  teach  "object  lessons'  by  having 
the  teacher  bring  the  "object"  in  her  hand,  or,  per- 
chance; allow  the  pupils  to  take  it  or  touch  it;  while 
Froebel  would  have  them  "do  something"  or  "make 
something"  with  or  from  the  object. 

He  would  not  teach  even  geography  by  the  use 
of  the  eye  alone,  but  would  take  objects  like  an 
orange,  a  banana,  a  piece  of  ivory,  tea  or  coffee,  and 
go  with  the  class  on  imaginary  voyages  to  the  coun- 
tries where  these  things  are  obtained,  pointing  out 
the  various  routes  on  the  map  with  all  possible  in- 
structive detail  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the  minds  of 
the  class  through  the  pleasure  and  excitement  of  the 
trip. 

He  would  not  teach  botany  until  the  child  had 
planted  and  grown  flowers  and  learned  some  lessons 
of  their  life  and  development;  then  he  would  connect 
the  abstract  science  with  the  already  aroused  interest 
in  plant  life. 

He  distinctly  taught  that  those  who  train  one  part 
only  of  man's  nature  to  the  neglect  of  the  others  are 
producing  abnormal  beings  out  of  harmony  with 
God's  laws.  What  a  reflection  on  present-day  school 
methods! 


44  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

Froebel  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  discover 
that  not  to  develop  handicraft  is  actually  to  weaken 
and  decrease  mental  power,  a  most  suggestive 
thought  for  those  who  speak  of  "wasting  time  from 
study  to  work  with  the  hands"  or  who  feel  that  time 
in  school  used  in  hand  training  is  wasted.  He  saw, 
too,  the  high  moral  value  of  teaching  the  young  the 
ideals  of  the  true  interdependence  of  "each  to  all,  and 
all  to  each,"  rather  than  the  intensity  of  selfish  in- 
dividualism. Whatever  strengthened  the  bond  of 
human  unity  he  saw  was  divine  and  religious  in  its 
influence  on  character,  and  the  wickedness  of  all 
caste  divisions  of  society  he  clearly  appreciated. 

He  seemed  to  grasp  the  practical  value  of  the 
Christ  philosophy  of  the  brotherhood  of  men,  their 
perfect  unity  with  each  other  and  with  their  Creator, 
and  in  carrying  this  concept  into  effect  in  all  one's 
life  is  the  hope  of  the  elevation  of  the  race;  and  in 
no  other  way  can  this  ideal  be  so  perfectly  developed 
as  in  schools  where  all  work  together  for  a  common 
end. 

He  was  a  seer  of  collectivism;  he  saw  clearly  and 
perfectly  how  the  highest  possible  development  oi' 
the  individual  is  perfectly  compatible  with  the 
closest  mutualism  of  co-operation.  He  was  one  of 
the  early  prophets  of  the  coming  co-operative  age, 
and  showed  the  way  by  which  it  can  be  brought 
about,  the  possible  preparation  for  a  millennial  epoch, 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  45 

through  the  more  complete  education  of  the  produc- 
ing classes  and  by  ennobling  labor  for  all.  He 
clearly  saw  the  immorality  of  the  selfish  spirit  of 
competition  as  distinguished  from  the  nobler  one  of 
emulation. 

These  sentiments  were  more  recently  affirmed  by 
the  late  Colonel  Parker,  of  the  Chicago  Normal 
School,  who  publicly  declared  that  athe  greatest 
work  to  be  accomplished  by  the  common  school  sys- 
tem is  the  cultivation  of  a  spirit  of  mutualism,  altru- 
ism and  democracy  among  the  people;  failing  this," 
he  emphatically  declared,  "the  schools  fail  of  their 
highest  mission."  In  no  other  way  can  they  so  per- 
fectly perform  this  work  as  when  the  teachers  and 
pupils  work  together  a  portion  of  the  time  for  the 
common  good,  while  teaching  and  learning  the  in- 
valuable lessons  of  mechanics  and  of  productive  labor 
that  shall  provide  for  their  mutual  needs. 

"Civilization  is  Co-operation!" — Henry  George. 

FROEBEI/S   PLANS    FOR   SMALL    SCHOOLS. 

The  essentials  of  Froebel's  plans  for  the  smaller 
schools,  where  the  teacher  has  no  experience  and 
neither  apparatus  nor  text  books  on  handicraft  train- 
ing, may  be  safely  introduced  in  the  primary  grade, 
whether  the  pupils  have  had  kindergarten  training 
or  not,  by  cutting  familiar  objects  from  paper;  then 
folding  papers  into  envelope  forms,  triangles, 


46  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

squares,  etc.,  etc.;  then,  with  heavier  paper,  making 
boxes,  cornucopias  and  all  possible  things  by  folding 
and  creasing,  all  the  time  cultivating  exactness  in 
corners  and  edges,  and  general  neatness  of  work  and 
closeness  in  following  copy. 

A  few  hours  of  this  each  week  will  delight  the 
children,  and  the  work  will  take  the  place  at  home 
of  noisy,  purposeless  plays  and  will  vastly  help  in 
gaining  the  perfect  control  of  hands  and  the  culture 
of  the  eye  so  useful  in  all  life's  activities.  From 
this  the  steps  will  be  gradual  along  the  varied  forms 
of  basket  making,  weaving  in  colors,  braiding  with 
three,  four  or  six  strands  of  strings,  braiding  corn 
husk  mats,  sewing  from  the  simplest  basting  stitch 
to  the  most  difficult  blind  darning  and  elaborate 
embroidery.  By  the  time  the  sixth  grade  is  reached, 
the  simpler  forms  of  Sloyd  may  be  taken  up,  the 
drawing  of  simple  forms  on  wood,  then  whittling 
to  the  drawing,  in  all  cases  the  work  finished  with 
sandpaper  to  have  the  completed  product  look 
smooth  and  neat. 

The  jackknife  can  be  made  an  implement  of 
art  culture,  equal  to  the  pencil  or  brush,  if  only 
directed  into  making  things  of  symmetry  instead 
of  the  usual  inane  whittling  merely  to  make  shav- 
ings. The  use  of  scissors  in  cutting  silhouettes, 
birds,  profiles,  dolls,  etc.,  is  of  equal  value.  As  the 
work  goes  forward  and  skill  and  interest1  deepens 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  47 

it  will  sharpen  the  ability  to  memorize  lessons  from 
books  and  greatly  help  in  maintaining  discipline  and 
interest. 

The  children  from  the  kindergarten  up  should 
be  taught  to  plant  seeds  and  care  for  plants,  flow- 
ers, shrubs  and  vines,  and  the  taste  thus  started 
for  the  future  study  of  botany,  a  sure  beginning  for 
future  home  decoration  with  flowers  and  beautiful 
living  things. 

From  the  seventh  grade  the  more  difficult  steps 
in  Sloyd  should  be  introduced :  first,  drawing  more 
useful  things  on  wood,  paper  cutters,  cake  spoons, 
potato  mashers,  measuring  rules,  hammers  or  axe 
handles,  then  whittling  or  planing  or  shaving  them 
to  the  forms  drawn,  all  the  time  striving  to  im- 
prove the  technique  of  form  and  finish.  Clay  mod- 
eling, water  color  painting,  with  more  or  less  of 
free-hand  drawing  or  sketching  from  nature,  ac- 
cording to  the  taste  or  ability  of  the  pupils,  may  be 
introduced. 

In  the  same  simple  but  effective  manner  may 
"nature  studies"  be  made  most  useful  and  intensely 
interesting,  and  become  a  preparation  for  later 
studies  in  biology  or  zoology.  If  there  are  no  text 
books  in  the  school,  or  the  teacher  has  had  no  train- 
ing, begin  with  the  study  of  domestic  animals,  their 
habits,  their  varying  instincts  and  intelligence ;  then 
study  the  wild  birds  and  animals,  learning  as  much 


48  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

as  possible  of  their  peculiar  modes  of  living,  their 
cunning  and  means  of  defense;  then  the  honey  bees 
and  insects,  getting  the  pupils  to  learn  from  inquiry 
or  study  of  their  structure,  their  ways  of  life  and 
means  of  defense,  what  species  are  related,  their 
transformation  from  the  egg  and  worm  to  the  per- 
fect insect  on  wings,  and  of  any  that  do  not  pass 
through  the  chrysalis  state,  etc.,  etc.  It  will  sur- 
prise the  teacher  who  has  never  tried  it  to  see  how 
much  of  most  interesting  lore  can  be  gathered  and 
combined  by  the  efforts  of  a  small  school,  of  what 
intense  interest  it  will  be,  and  how  it  will  add  to 
the  value  and  depth  of  the  text-book  study  thus  to 
broaden  the  field  of  investigation,  and  how  much  it 
will  help  to  create  the  love  of  observation  which  is 
one  of  the  highest  aims  of  all  school  work. 

Let  no  teacher  fear  to  begin  this  work  because 
of  lack  of  training  or  of  text  books.  In  no  way  may 
a  teacher  come  into  more  complete  sympathy  with 
pupils  than  to  experiment  and  learn  with  them  to 
do  the  things  that  are  out  of  the  conventional  rut  of 
school  work.  To  ask  them  for  help  and  suggestions 
will  be  to  them  a  favor  unspeakable,  and  there  is  no 
better  way  to  draw  out  their  best  thought  or  inge- 
nuity and  thus  double  the  value  of  the  lessons 
learned.  Often,  too,  it  will  be  well  to  ask  for  an- 
swers to  or  explanations  of  problems  that  will  re- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  49 

quire  time  and  study  to  solve,  and  thus  encourage 
that  reflection  which  is  the  highest  form  of  study. 

In  all  this  work  outside  of  text-books  let  there  be 
no  suspicion  that  the  time  is  at  all  wasted  or 
misused;  instead  it  is  likely  to>  be  the  most  valuable 
and  profitable  of  any  in  the  whole  school  work;  it 
will  rest,  refresh  and  renew  the  interest  in  regular 
study;  will  draw  out  observation,  comparison  and 
analysis ;  will  strengthen  logic,  or  the  power  to  rea- 
son from  cause  to  effect ;  will  develop  the  control  of 
the  hand  and  eye,  the  taste  for  observing  things 
and  the  best  method  of  effort  and  execution. 

One  of  the  best  results  will  be  the  improved 
moral  tone  and  discipline  of  the  school  room,  for 
which  nothing  is  worse  than  the  dull,  uninterested 
effort  to  memorize  simply  because  one  must;  and 
to  be  fairly  decorous  from  fear  only  does  not  de- 
velop nobility  of  character  as  when  one's  conduct 
is  exemplary  from  the  pride  in  doing  well,  and  an 
interest  in  the  work  of  the  school,  all  of  which 
these  methods  will  inspire.  The  pupil  who  reluc- 
tantly and  perforce  memorizes  dry  facts  and  ab- 
stract statements  of  principles  is  touched  on  a  low 
moral  plane,  if  not  absolutely  injured  morally; 
while  if  the  active,  intense  interest  and  joy  of  learn- 
ing things  for  their  own  sake  is  aroused  and  sus- 
tained, the  moral  tone  of  the  pupil  is  exalted  and 
his  higher  character  developed. 


50  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

MATERIALS    FOR    MECHANICAL    STUDY    ALL    ABOUT. 

In  every  school  room  are  materials  for  study  of 
mechanics  and  the  achievements  of  skilled  labor; 
the  very  seats  and  desks  are  most  prolific  texts  for 
interesting  talks  on  the  mechanics  of  their  con- 
struction, the  pitch  of  backs  and  seats,  the  hinge 
and  action  of  the  seat,  the  beautifully  joined  strips 
of  wood  and  the  methods  of  union  of  wood  and 
metal,  and  above  all,  the  history  of  the  evolution  of 
the  school  seat,  from  the  old-time  slab,  set  on  rude 
legs  put  in  auger  holes,  with  no  table  in  front  to 
rest  the  books  upon,  to  the  present  scientific  per- 
fect school  seat,  worthy  of  extreme  admiration  as  a 
work  of  real  art. 

So  can  the  teacher  develop  a  wealth  of  material 
for  study  in  all  things  about  the  school  and  homes 
of  the  pupils,  the  farm  wagon  and  the  buggy,  the 
wheelbarrow  and  the  bicycle,  the  sewing  machine 
and  the  reaper  or  seed  planter,  all  will  afford  les- 
sons of  most  fascinating  interest  to  both  pupils 
and  teachers  who  are  looking  for  progress  in  the 
art  of  teaching. 

METHODS  FOR  THE  FEEBLE-MINDED. 

"Education  is  leading  human  souls  to  what  is  best, 
and  getting  what  is  best  out  of  them. 

Wholesome  human  employment  is  the  first  and  best 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  51 

method  in  all  education,  mental  as  ^vell  as  physical." 

— John  Ruskin. 

We  find  that  the  unfortunate  child  of  feeble 
mind,  or  no  apparent  mind  at  all,  who  cannot  pos- 
sibly mentally  grasp  the  abstract  idea  of  the  differ- 
ence between  one  and  two,  can  be  led  along  by  first 
taking  one  apple  in  his  hand,  tasting  its  goodness  to 
arouse  an  interest,  then,  taking  two  apples  in  his 
hands,  tasting  of  each  to  see  that  both  are  good;  and 
slowly  but  surely  there  comes  to  the  dull  mind  the 
difference  between  only  one  apple  in  one  hand  or  an 
apple  in  each  hand;  gradually  the  weak  mentality 
comes  to  know  two  and,  finally,  three  apples  in  his 
hands,  when  he  could  not  possibly  do  so  by  seeing 
them  with  his  eyes.  After  the  awakened  mind  has 
learned  by  the  touch  of  the  hands  of  the  one  apple 
and  of  two,  three  or  more  apples,  he  is  given  a  knife 
to  handle;  he  is  pricked  with  its  sharp  point  and 
slightly  cut  with  its  keen  edge ;  he  learns  to  respect 
and  fear  these  qualities.  Then  he  learns  to  cut  his 
apple  and  he  has  gained  a  power  to  do.  A  pencil 
mark  is  made  on  a  thin  piece  of  wood  and  he  is 
helped  to  follow  the  pencil  mark  with  his  knife.  He 
is  delighted  with  the,  to  him,  great  feat.  So  slowly 
but  surely,  he  is  led  along  in  the  development  of 
creative  power  till,  perchance,  he  can  make  a  rude  but 
fairly  correct  foot  rule  and  mark  with  a  pencil  the 


52  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

inches  on  it  in  imitation  of  one  taken  as  a  sample 
to  work  from.  This  is  an  achievement  to  him  quite 
equal  to  Watt's  first  successful  movement  of  a  pis- 
ton in  the  cylinder  by  the  power  of  steam.  He  en- 
joys doing  and  making  and  a  new  interest  is 
aroused. 

Slowly  and  gradually  the  growing  power  is  fost- 
ered till  he  is  shown  a  box  with  his  apples  in  it 
but  no  cover  to  enclose  them.  The  box  is  just  as 
long  as  his  rude  rule,  cut  out  with  such  labor  and 
joy.  He  is  shown  a  saw,  and  his  fingers  feel  the 
sharp  teeth.  He  is  taught  to  saw  off  a  piece  of  the 
board  and  after  a  few  trials  his  foot  rule  is  laid 
upon  the  board  and  he  is  helped  to  saw  off  a  piece 
just  long  enough  to  cover  his  box  and  hide  the 
apples.  It  is  lifted  and  replaced,  till  he  sees  the  dif- 
ference between  them  covered  and  uncovered. 
Some  nails  are  shown  and  felt  and  a  hammer  is 
put  in  his  hands  and  he  is  allowed  to  pound.  After 
a  little  he  is  helped  to  drive  the  nails  and  his  box  is 
closed.  He  cannot  now  touch  or  take  his  prized 
apples,  a  new  and  startling  conception.  He  is  en- 
couraged to  draw  the  nails,  but  made  to  do  it  him- 
self and  then  allowed  to  take  the  uncovered  apples 
in  his  hands  and  again  cover  and  nail  the  lid  down. 
Then  the  cover  is  fastened  on  with  screws,  all  done 
by  his  own  hands.  Then  a  longer  box  is  brought 
and  the  cover  already  cut  is  shown  to  be  too  short ; 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  53 

the  box  measured  and  found  to  be  twice  the  length 
of  the  rule,  and  the  rule  used,  all  the  time  in  his 
own  hands,  to  mark  off  a  cover  two  rule  lengths. 
It  is  sawed  off  and  found  to  cover  the  box  and  en- 
close his  apples.  Then  a  knife  and  sandpaper  are 
used  to  smooth  the  rough  board  so  it  will  feel  dif- 
ferent to  the  touch  of  the  hand.  So,  on  and  on,  the 
hand  leading  to  the  concept  of  the  mind  in  Nature's 
own  way,  till  the  seemingly  vacant  mind  is  edu- 
cated to  greater  and  greater  activity,  and  the  power 
of  doing  things  leads  on  to  usefulness  of  greater  or 
less  degree,  till  often  not  only  the  use  of  simple 
tools  is  acquired,  but  finally  the  lawn  mower  and 
the  bicycle  are  mastered,  the  hoe  and  spade  in  the 
garden,  or  the  broom  and  duster  in  the  house;  and 
usefulness  and  enjoyment  take  the  place  of  painful 
vacuity. 

Along  essentially  the  same  line  have  we  seen  the 
stupid,  listless  colored  boy,  who  had  with  difficulty 
been  taught  to  lead  the  mule  to  water,  to  tie  him  se- 
curely in  the  stall,  and  as  a  tremendous  achievement 
to  harness  and  hitch  him  to  the  cotton  cultivator, 
but  who  could  no  more  take  off  the  nut  and  washer 
from  the  plow  bolt  than  he  could  run  an  engine  or  a 
printing  press.  Later  the  same  boy,  as  seemingly 
dull  in  mechanics  as  the  vacant-minded  child  who 
could  not  learn  "two"  was  in  mathematics,  became 
eager  to  own  a  second-hand  wheel;  under  the  magic 


54  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

power  of  its  touch  in  his  own  hands,  he  gradually  came 
to  have  a  glimmering  sense  of  its  intricate  mechanism 
and  the  mystery  of  the  monkey  wrench  and  the  nut 
and  washer  on  the  bolt  became  plain  and  simple  to  the 
drawn-out  faculty. 

The  same  boy,  engaged  to  assist  the  village 
blacksmith,  and,  feeling  a  sense  of  already  having 
had  a  mechanical  experience  of  no  mean  value  with 
his  wheel,  was  soon  able  to  take  to  pieces  the 
broken  plow  or  cultivator  and  put  it  together  cor- 
rectly when  mended ;  would  place  the  bit  in  a  brace 
and  bore  a  hole  through  the  broken  plow  beam  and 
select  and  insert  the  correct  sized  bolt  and  draw  it 
to  place  with  the  wrench;  would  do  quite  intricate 
jobs  of  taking  apart  or  putting  together  wagons  and 
buggies,  and  in  time  became  quite  an  accomplished 
helper  in  this  difficult  art  of  handicraft.  In  all  such 
cases,  with  this  added  mental  power,  gained  mainly 
through  discipline  of  the  hand,  there  comes  an  ele- 
vation of  morals;  the  lazy,  thriftless,  "frivolous," 
fellow  becomes  possessed  of  pride  and  self-respect 
and  is  industrious  largely  in  proportion  to  the  ex- 
tent of  his  training  in  handicraft  skill,  thus  in  a 
very  practical  and  forceful  manner  confirming 
Froebers  theory  that  through  creative  labor  there 
is  moral  and  spiritual  uplift;  and  only  with  this 
type  of  education  is  there  any  hope  of  race  eleva- 
tion. How  few  of  the  conventional  teachers  real- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  55 

ize  that  essentially  the  same  principles  should 
maintain  for  the  bright  and  precocious  pupil,  as  for 
the  mentally  vacant,  differing  in  degree  only,  but 
following  the  same  steps  of  progress  from  hand  to 
brain. 

While  the  bright  and  precocious  child  may  learn 
from  the  study  of  the  abstract,  it  will  much  sooner 
and  better  grasp  and  retain  by  following  Nature's 
plan  of  the  hand  first,  and  then  the  brain,  in  ac- 
quiring knowledge  and  the  power  to  use  it. 

THE    UNFORTUNATE   RACES. 

For  the  unfortunate  races  to  strive  for  lit- 
erary culture,  while  neglecting  to  develop  the  crea- 
tive power  of  their  hands,  is  much  more  disastrous 
than  an  attempt  to  build  the  school  house  by  rear- 
ing the  bell  tower  and  roof  before  any  structure  is 
begun  below.  The  wreck  of  the  tower  may  pos- 
sibly be  saved  and  properly  elevated  after  the  lower 
structure  is  erected ;  but  those  who  think  they  have 
attained  the  pinnacle  by  a  college  diploma,  with  no 
discipline  of  hand,  are  above  and  beyond  any  hope 
of  being  taught  any  new  lessons.  They  have  been 
taught  by  that  strongest  of  all  teachers,  imitation, 
to  do  as  their  teachers  do,  who,  according  to  Froe- 
bel,  Herbert  Spencer  and  thousands  of  others,  have 
been  educated  to  pagan  ideals,  not  to  the  true 


56  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

science  of  correct  development,  which  always  trains 
the  hands  first. 

"No  law  of  human  nature  is  more  dominant  than 
our  tendency  to  imitate  those  we  consider  above  us." 

In  the  race  problem  this  is  one  of  the  fundamen- 
tals that  must  be  reckoned  with.  We  do  most 
heartily  wish  that  all  the  colored  theological  semi- 
naries of  the  present  system  could  be  wiped  out  or 
changed  to  such  as  the  grand  old  apostle,  St.  Paul, 
"would  approve.  His  methods  were  first  to  set  up 
his  tent  maker's  shop,  and  then  teach  a  higher  social 
and  religious  ideal,  viz.,  that  in  self-reliant,  self-  re- 
specting, self-supporting  labor  of  skilled  hands  is 
trie  first  elementary  and  fundamental  lesson  in  a 
Christian  life  or  civilization.  If  this  type  could  be- 
come the  established  order,  we  should  not  so  often 
hear  the  merited  severe  criticism  by  thoughtful 
Southern  people  of  the  colored  preachers  of  the 
South ;  and  there  is  no  question  but  that  our  North- 
ern brethren  of  the  cloth  would  gain  a  Pauline 
power  along  the  same  line. 

"To  work  was  from  the  beginning,  and  is  today  the 
joy,  the  pride  and  the  honor  of  life." 

— Bishop  Doane. 

"If  any  will  not  work,  neither  shall  he  eat!' 

— Saint  Paul. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  57 

A  TEACHER'S  RESPONSIBILITY. 

In  view  of  Spencer's  indictment  of  present  meth- 
ods of  education,  we  have  never  been  able  to  un- 
derstand how  the  progressive,  earnest,  conscien- 
tious teachers  have  been  willing  to  go  on  without  pro- 
test, continuing  a  system  so  tainted  with  pagan  ideals, 
and  how  so  many  are  even  averse  to  any  effort  to- 
wards change  or  improvement.  But  we  do  know 
that  in  general  the  educators  are  the  very  Conserv- 
atives of  Conservatism,  and  some  are  so  rooted  in 
egotism  as  to  be  unwilling  to  admit  that  any  pos- 
sible advance  can  be  made  on  their  own  methods, 
and  even  so  blinded  as  to  boast  of  their  adherence 
to  the  false  ideal  of  looking  with  contempt  on  labor. 

We  cannot  understand  how  true,  earnest,  present- 
day  teachers  can  be  willing  to  continue  to  lead  their 
unwilling  young  students  through  all  the  flound- 
erings,  mental  gymnastics  and  mind-dwarfing 
processes  of  the  present  courses  in  our  high  schools, 
seminaries  and  colleges,  in  view  of  these  lessons 
from  Spencer  and  his  lucid  proof  that  the  scientific 
nature  methods  would  so  much  better  fit  for  actual 
life,  so  much  better  prepare  for  home  and  citizen- 
ship, and  last,  but  not  least,  fit  for  the  highest  cul- 
ture and  enjoyment  in  the  realms  of  art  and  music 
and  for  the  moral  and  religious  development  of  our 
strangely  complex  being;  or  when  they  consider 


58  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

the  teachings  of  Froebel,  the  modern  Socrates,  who 
saw  so  clearly  how  Nature's  way  of  education  is  al- 
ways from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract,  from  the 
hand  to  the  brain,  from  action  to  reason. 

Yet  in  spite  of  it  all,  in  spite  of  the  long  and  loud 
mutterings  of  discontent  with  the  present  system, 
our  teachers  stand  in  the  way  and  continue  to  teach 
as  they  were  taught,  instead  of  being,  as  they  ought 
to  be,  the  radical  leaders  along  the  path  of  mental 
evolution  and  progress. 

Yet  no  one  has  ever  dared  to  oppose  Spencer's 
logic,  that  to  cram  memory  with  what  will  be 
quickly  forgotten  is  not  development,  and  that  it  is 
practically  starvation  to  deny  the  mind  the  quality 
of  food  it  has  a  longing  for  and  that  will  give  it 
strength  along  the  lines  that  will  be  continually 
added  to  by  life's  activities,  which  is  the  true  ideal 
for  educational  efforts.  His  philosophy  stands  all 
unchallenged  and  unanswered,  though  a  most 
severe  and  sweeping  denunciation  of  present  meth- 
ods. 

We  are  sure  this  wrong  method  of  mental  de- 
velopment has  had  a  most  unsalutary  effect  on  our 
national  character  and  made  us  as  a  people  so  weak 
in  logic  that  we  endure  with  strange  apathy  and 
stupid  submission  the  many  illogical  enslavements 
and  taxations  of  a  corrupt  and  foolish  political  and 
economic  system ;  and  we  believe  we  have  never  at- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  59 

tained  to  our  proper  place  as  an  entirely  free  and 
progressive  people,  as  we  should  do  under  a  truer 
educational  system. 

TEACHERS   BREAK   DOWN    PREMATURELY. 

"The  prosperity  of  the  state  depends  on  ALL  the 
people  being  properly  educated." — Gov.  Heyward. 

It  is  a  matter  of  most  common  remark  that  the 
teachers'  vocation  is  one  of  severe  nerve  strain,  and 
that  many  break  down  under  it  at  an  early  age  and 
thus  lose  their  best  years  of  usefulness.  This  alone 
is  enough  to  condemn  the  system,  for  of  all  citizens 
of  the  state,  the  teachers  should  be  the  most  valued, 
and  whatever  cuts  their  life  or  activity  short  is  a 
severe  loss  to  the  social  organism.  The  later  years 
of  a  teacher's  life  should  be  the  most  useful  and 
would  be  if  conserved  by  a  proper  change  from  men- 
tal to  physical  labor,  in  an  industrial  system  of 
school  life. 

"The  knowledge  obtained  from  books  is  but  the 
tool  to  develop  the  true  ivisdom  for  life." 

But  we  are  glad  to  welcome  the  signs  of  an  awak- 
ened consciousness  in  all  the  wide-awake  and  pro- 
gressive spirits  among  our  educators  and,  better  still, 
among  those  who  are  outside  the  profession  but 
earnestly  watching  its  workings  and  effects,  all  alive 
to  the  benefit  of  going  at  once  to  Nature's  own  method 


60  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

of  "feeling  after  knowledge"  then  learning  of  the 
abstract  later.  The  rapidly  advancing  demand  for 
teachers  who  can  teach  the  hands  to  do,  as  well  as 
the  head  to  think,  proves  that  the  new  order  is  at 
hand. 

"Industrial  training  of  the  rural  population  is  one 
of  the  most  important  problems  before  the  American 
people." — Ex-Mayor  Abram  S.  Hewitt. 

EXAMPLES    AND    PRECEDENTS. 

Some  very  successful  experiments  have  been  made 
where  industrial  features  are  given  due  prominence 
with  most  gratifying  results. 

GARDEN  SCHOOLS. 

One  of  the  most  practical  was  established  by  the 
Cash  Register  Company  of  Dayton,  Ohio,  at  the 
suggestion  of  its  able  president. 

Nearly  one  hundred  boys  were  gathered  off  the 
streets  and  each  one  given  a  garden  plot  of  about 
six  rods,  where  he  was  taught  gardening  and  flori- 
culture by  an  expert.  The  boys  were  given  all  the 
products  of  their  work,  and  prizes  for  attention  and 
superior  skill.  Their  work  continued  only  four  hours 
per  day,  two  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  after- 
noon, so  as  not  to  become  monotonous.  It  has  been 
found  to  be  not  only  a  most  charming  study,  that 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  61 

the  boys  look  forward  to  with  eagerness  and  enthu- 
siasm, but  it  has  had  a  most  wonderful  moral  influ- 
ence. The  rowdy,  hoodlum  boys,  the  so-called 
"toughs"  of  the  street,  who  were  the  terror  of  the 
neighborhood,  have  become  gentlemanly  and  polite, 
and  find  their  work  more  attractive  than  their  old 
sports.  One  striking  proof  of  this  change  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  lots  in  that  neighborhood  have  more 
than  trebled  in  value.  The  success  was  beyond  the 
promoter's  highest  anticipations,  the  boys  becoming 
so  changed  under  the  charm  of  being  workers  with 
God  in  Nature's  magic  wonderland  of  growing 
things. 

These  boys  from  the  garden  schools  have  without 
doubt  changed  the  whole  tenor  of  their  lives.  Their 
homes  will  have  flowers,  trees  and  vines;  their  leisure 
will  probably  be  spent  in  a  garden  rather  than  in  a 
saloon.  They  have  tasted  one  of  the  highest  joys  of 
life  at  Nature's  own  fountain. 

Can  there  be  a  possible  doubt  that  these  factory 
boys  will  be  more  likely  to  be  law-abiding,  home- 
loving  citizens  for  these  hours  of  teaching  and  work 
in  the  first  and  highest  place  of  man's  labor?  This 
caring  for  living,  growing  things,  this  communion 
with  Nature's  most  wonderful  and  charming  ways, 
is  one  of  the  greatest  safeguards  for  all  young  people, 
girls  as  well  as  boys,  and  no  industrial  school  will  be 
complete  without  its  farm  and  garden. 


62  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

In  other  garden  schools  or  children's  farms  one 
half  the  product  of  the  plat  was  sold  to  pay  for  seed 
and  teachers'  salaries,  and  in  this  way  were  nearly 
self-supporting.  No  doubt,  in  the  saving  of  crime 
alone  these  schools  paid  a  thosand  per  cent,  on  their 
cost,  and  should  be  established  in  every  city  in  the 
nation. 

It  may  be  a  question  for  serious  consideration  how 
much  our  Sunday  school  workers  may  learn  from 
the  moralizing  influence  of  these  garden  schools.  It 
is  certainly  an  inspiring  fact  that  village  boys  and 
girls  who  have  won  the  name  of  "toughs"  can  be 
brought  to  comparatively  good  order  and  the  value 
of  lots  largely  increased  by  the  elevating  influence 
of  garden  work.  We  believe  these  children  could  be 
touched  by  a  Sabbath  lesson  freed  from  all  theo- 
logical dogma,  but  full  of  the  spirit  of  reverent  love 
for  the  great  All  Father,  the  source  of  all  life  and 
law,  and  some  of  the  simple,  tender  and  direct  teach- 
ings of  the  Carpenter  of  Galilee  on  our  mutual  rela- 
tions and  the  oneness  of  man  and  his  Creator.  We 
are  equally  sure  that  primary  lessons  in  botany  and 
the  varied  sciences  connected  with  soil,  seed,  cli- 
mate, fertilizers,  etc.,  could  be  imparted  in  the  gar- 
den school  that  would  be  of  deepest  interest  and 
begin  that  taste  for  study  and  for  knowing  things 
that  would  make  the  later  study  in  school  a  matter 
of  delight  and  interest,  instead  of  the  dull  burden  of 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  63 

abstract    study    of    the    conventional    school    text 
books. 

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

More  than  half  a  century  ago  J.  G.  Holland  wrote 
out  the  theory  of  self-government  for  pupils  in  school 
in  his  charming  story  of  "Arthur  Bonnicastle."  The 
idea  was  too  great  and  good  to  be  adopted  at  once, 
but,  like  all  advanced  ideas,  had  to  wait  a  generation 
before  its  worth  was  fully  appreciated  and  the  needs 
of  a  more  democratic  ideal  called  it  into  use ;  but  now 
the  world  is  ripe  for  it,  and  we  find  many  schools 
adopting  this  method  of  discipline,  as  well  as  some 
philanthropic  works  like  the  Forward  Movement  of 
Chicago,  which  has  for  several  years  taken  a  large 
crowd  of  young  children  for  a  summer  outing  and 
used  this  method  of  maintaining  discipline  with  most 
satisfactory  results. 

GEORGE    JUNIOR    REPUBLIC. 

The  George  Junior  Republic  was  started  in  this 
way,  and  has  grown  into  a  permanent  institution. 
This  is  exactly  what  its  name  indicates,  a  republic  of 
minors  who  are  self-governing,  and  whose  motto  is 
"Nothing  without  Labor."  It  is  made  up  largely  of 
homeless  or  worse  than  homeless  boys  and  girls 
from  the  cities.  They  have  the  usual  amount  of 


64  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

school  work  and  must  work  out  of  school  hours  for 
all  their  needs.  They  are  paid  in  the  coin  of  the 
Republic  for  their  work,  and,  as  there  is  no  provi- 
sion for  those  who  are  lazy,  those  who  do  not  work 
soon  suffer  for  the  necessaries  of  life  and  so  learn  to 
have  a  wholesome  respect  for  labor  as  well  as  for  law. 
The  results  so  far  have  been  surprisingly  satisfac- 
tory. How  much  better  this  than  taking  single  boys 
or  girls  to  lonely  country  homes,  where  everything 
is  so  utterly  out  of  sympathy  with  tlieir  former  en- 
vironment. 

In  our  truant  schools  it  has  been  found  necessary 
to  introduce  hand  work  and  so  interesting  does  this 
become  that  we  often  find  good  boys  playing  truant 
that  they  may  be  sent  there  where  they  'learn  to 
make  things  with  their  hands." 

In  schools  for  feeble-minded  children  it  is  often 
found  that  mental  activity  can  only  be  aroused 
through  the  physical.  So  in  our  prisons  frequently 
the  first  signs  of  an  awakening  of  the  mental  and 
moral  faculties  come  through  some  training  of  the 
physical. 

In  a  small  denominational  school  a  plant  for  in- 
dustrial training  was  put  in  a  few  years  ago,  but  no 
teacher  could  be  found  who  could  or  would  teach 
the  ideals  of  labor  by  example,  and  the  plan  was  ap- 
proaching failure,  when  a  principal  took  charge  from 
one  of  the  agricultural  colleges.  He  came  prepared 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  65 

with  overalls  and  blouse,  and,  with  the  genuine  en- 
thusiasm of  a  trained  horticulturist  and  botanist,  at 
once  called  for  volunteers  to  work  in  the  garden 
zvith  him  as  a  daily  task.  Very  soon  the  labor  caste 
which  had  been  established  was  all  swept  away  and 
the  pupils  vied  with  each  other  for  the  privilege  of 
working  in  the  garden  and  shops  with  their  favorite 
teacher,  who  had  the  winning  spirit  which  comes 
from  high  mental  culture  and  a  love  for  Nature's 
ways,  and  whose  hands  had  the  cunning  and  skill 
with  tools  that  made  his  work  like  the  magic  touch 
of  the  artist's  pencil,  a  charm  that  is  always  attractive 
and  always  wins. 

In  this  school,  as  in  all  manual  training  schools,  it 
was  found  that  the  work  settled  all  problems  of  dis- 
cipline. 

"Education  should  fit  for  complete  living,  not  to 
create  a  literary  aristocracy." — Herbert  Spencer. 

PRIMARY    INDUSTRIAL    SCHOOLS. 

In  one  of  our  Southern  cities  a  Primary  Industrial 
School  for  the  neglected  children  of  the  factories 
was  started  as  a  philanthropy,  and  has  proven  such 
a  success  that  it  has  been  made  a  part  of  the  public 
school  system.  These  children  would  not  attend  the 
schools  devoted  wholly  to  memory  cramming,  but 
when  the  industrial  training  was  introduced  were 
eager  to  take  part. 


66  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

SUBURBAN  CITY  AND  CONCENTRATED  COUNTRY  SCHOOLS. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  one  desirable  change 
in  city  schools  would  be  to  take  the  schools  away 
from  the  congested  districts  into  the  suburbs,  where 
every  school  building  could  be  surrounded  by  green 
grass,  with  fresh  air  and  ample  playgrounds  among 
flowers,  trees  and  gardens.  This  would  stop  the 
growth  of  slums  and  slum  elements,  as  children  once 
used  to  such  environments  would  never  again  desire 
or  be  willing  to  go  to  slum  conditions. 

We  deem  this  thoroughly  practical,  and  not  so 
radical  a  change  as  the  rapidly  extending  system  of 
concentrating  the  country  schools  carrying  the  chil- 
dren to  and  from  school  at  public  expense,  with  the 
advantages  immensely  more.  In  both  cases  there 
would  be  plenty  of  room  to  introduce  complete 
manual  training.  The  street  cars  can  carry  pupils 
at  a  cent  each  at  a  profit  and  children  so  educated 
would  surely  become  a  "new  and  superior  order  of 
people,"  and  such  a  system  of  "Summer  Garden 
Schools"  as  we  have  described  could  be  one  of  the 
most  valuable  and  important  features  of  our  regular 
common  school  course. 

AGRICULTURAL    TRAINING. 

"Our  agricultural  interests,  either  in  view  of  their 
domestic  value,  or  as  exports,  are.  the  most  important 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  67 

interests  of  the  nation,  yet  they  are  least  perfectly  de- 
veloped of  any."—Prest.  Geo.  T.  Powell. 

"No  nation  will  long  survive  the  decay  of  its  Agri- 
culture."— Thos.  Jefferson. 

"The  strength  and  glory  of  a  nation  depends  on  its 
tillers  of  the  soil." — Thos.  Jefferson. 

Not  only  is  agriculture  one  of  the  most  important 
industries,  but  its  study  and  practice  is  one  of  the 
most  inspiring  and  elevating  to  man's  moral  nature, 
and  the  great,  historic  characters,  from  Moses'  time 
till  today,  have  come  from  the  discipline  and  spirit- 
ual uplift  of  some  type  of  agricultural  pursuit. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  studies  and  move- 
ments along  the  line  of  progress  in  advancing  indus- 
trial culture  and  agricultural  science  has  been  started  in 
the  states  of  Minnesota  and  Wisconsin.  In  the  former 
state,  primary  and  some  advanced  study  of  scientific 
agriculture  is  being  advocated  for  all  the  common 
schools,  the  effort  having  been  initiated  by  the  able 
head  of  the  agricultural  department  of  the  State  Uni- 
versity, Professor  Hayes,  who  has  also  presented  a 
most  practical  plan  for  concentrating  from  ten  to  fif- 
teen adjacent  school  districts  into  one  high  school  of 
agriculture  and  allied  sciences.  As  up-to-date  farm- 
ing requires  a  general  knowledge  and  ability  in  sev- 
eral of  the  handicraft  trades,  such  schools  will  nat- 
urally need  to  teach  a  variety  of  mechanic  arts  to 


68  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

agricultural  pupils,  and  they  will  soon  see  the  need 
of  making  provision  for  the  boys  and  girls  from  the 
villages  and  towns,  who  will  also  need  a  wide  variety 
of  industrial  education,  with  the  fundamental  train- 
ing in  some  phases  of  agricultural  science.  The  nat- 
ural evolution  of  the  best  methods  must  bring  more 
or  less  of  the  self-supporting  principle  into  use,  if,  as 
we  are  fully  persuaded,  it  is  the  best  and  most  sci- 
entific method  for  gaming  an  industrial  training. 

The  suggestion  is  one  of  great  promise  for  the  fu- 
ture, and  is  in  effect  being  adopted  in  several  states, 
and  will  no  doubt  become  as  universal  as  any  branch 
of  the  public  system  of  instruction  in  the  new  de- 
mocracy that  is  to  be. 

This  is  but  the  first  step  toward  the  equipment  of 
the  youth  of  the  coming  age  for  higher  and  yet 
higher  attainments  in  "complete  living." 

President  Patterson  of  the  Cash  Register  Com- 
pany says  that  at  present  about  98  per  cent  of  the 
pupils  leave  the  schools  with  no  training  at  all  in  any 
branch  of  agriculture,  when  the  percentage  should  be 
reversed,  or,  better  still,  when  no  pupil  should  be 
allowed  to  leave  without  thorough  knowledge  in 
some  branch  of  agricultural  lore,  the  working  to- 
gether with  God  in  nature  to  produce  the  needs  of 
life. 

In  Wisconsin  the  Superintendent  of  Schools,  Pro- 
fessor Harvey,  was  sent  to  Europe  to  study  particu- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  69 

larly  what  could  be  learned  of  their  methods  of  agri- 
cultural education.  He  came  home  with  startling 
reports  of  the  much  larger  number  of  agricultural 
colleges,  in  proportion  to  the  inhabitants,  than  in 
this  country;  and  the  state,  at  his  suggestion,  has 
started  a  movement  to  have  an  agricultural  school  for 
every  county,  the  plan  being  to  have  the  state  bear 
one-half  the  expense  and  the  county  the  other  half. 
Professor  Harvey's  bulletin  containing  his  report  of 
agricultural  and  industrial  education  in  Europe  and 
outlining  his  plans  for  progress  here  is  very  inspiring 
reading  for  any  one  who  hopes  for  progress  in  the 
fundamental  art  of  establishing  a  high  grade  of  citi- 
zenship. 

Alabama,  New  York  and  some  other  states  are 
already  moving  in  the  same  direction,  and  a  bill  has 
been  presented  in  Congress  for  government  aid  in 
furthering  the  work  so  hopeful  for  the  future. 

Not  only  is  agriculture  the  most  important  indus- 
try in  a  material  sense  for  the  nation,  but  the  effects 
of  its  study  and  practice  on  the  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  are  the  most  elevating  and  inspiring,  and  it 
has  always  developed  the  greatest  and  strongest 
characters  in  the  world's  history,  and  therefore 
should  be  considered  the  most  important  science  in 
an  educational  curriculum.  Whenever  the  educa- 
tional system  of  the  nation  is  reformed  to  the  de- 
gree of  having  for  its  main  purpose,  its  sole  aim,  the 


70  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

development  of  the  highest  average  of  citizenship  in 
mental  and  spiritual  attainments,  then  will  the  teach- 
ing of  some  phase  of  agricultural  lore  be  considered 
as  fundamental  as  the  multiplication  table.  And  for 
this  we  plead  with  every  organized  argicultural  in- 
terest or  labor  union;  it  is  the  one  thing  that  each 
and  every  child  should  be  taught  as  a  portion  of  the 
A,  B,  C  of  his  training  for  the  duties  of  citizenship. 
The  least  with  which  any  one  should  be  at  all  satis- 
fied for  any  child  of  city  or  slum  would  be  a  course 
in  a  Summer  Garden  School  or  an  Agricultural  High 
School. 

In  this  age  of  research,  if  agriculture  is  to  retain 
its  proper  place  as  the  most  exalted  and  exalting  vo- 
cation, it  must  be  made  scientific  and  the  charm  of 
all  technical  knowledge  brought  to  bear  to  make  it 
the  choice  of  the  liberally  educated.  It  must  be  so 
changed  that  not  a  suspicion  of  labor  caste  taint  can 
attach  to  the  educated  farmer. 

Edward  Bellamy  once  truly  said  that  in  no  other 
line  of  large  staple  production  is  there  such  a  lack 
of  system  and  science,  nor  such  a  waste  of  effort.  If 
there  were  no  other  reason  for  the  change  to  a  Free 
Universal  System  of  Industrial  Education,  this  alone 
would  be  sufficient. 

In  the  new  and  better  social  order  which  is  surely 
coming,  the  new  "Triumph  of  Democracy,"  of  which 
the  demand  for  universal  free  industrial  training  is 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  71 

but  one  of  the  many  indications,  there  will  be  new 
and  dominating  social  and  educational  standards,  as 
far  above  the  present  as  the  present  are  above  those 
of  the  past  feudal  times,  when  the  men  and  women 
of  the  estate  were  considered  as  only  a  portion  of 
the  appurtenances  of  the  barons'  establishment, 
handy  things  to  have  for  use  or  for  defense  but  with 
scant  rights  to  be  respected  and  no  mental  culture 
to  be  thought  of  as  belonging  to  their  caste. 

And  only  when  all  the  children  have  a  fairly  full 
course  in  some  line  of  agricultural  study;  some  taste 
of  skilled  gardening  or  floriculure;  a  botanic  knowl- 
edge of  food  plants;  a  course  in  the  wonders  of  bac- 
teria, both  useful  and  destructive,  and  in  the  chem- 
istry of  soils,  foods,  fertilizers,  grains  and  vegetable 
growths,  with  a  general  knowledge  of  the  varied 
fruits,  how  to  improve,  propagate  and  adapt  them  to 
various  localities,  how  to  preserve  and  select,  to  ship 
and  to  sell,  only  when  all  these  widely  varied  branches 
of  these  most  interesting  and  charming  fields  of  in- 
tellectual growth  are  fully  taught  in  schools  open  and 
free  as  air  to  every  boy  and  girl  of  this  Republic, 
only  then  may  we  claim  that  necessary  progress  along 
this  line  has  come  to  an  approximate  end,  or  even  lay 
claim  to  a  fairly  well  developed  system. 

As  we  learn  that  it  took  nearly  fifty  years  of  per- 
sistent agitation  in  the  days  of  our  fathers  fully  to 
establish  the  idea  that  the  common  school  was  a 


72  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

necessity,  so  may  we  be  willing  to  work  as  long  as 
needful  for  this  next  great  step  upward  and  forward 
along  the  same  general  pathway. 

THE  ELEVATION    OF   THE   RACES. 

For  the  elevation  of  the  races  nothing  has  proven 
so  valuable  as  agricultural  training,  and,  radical  as 
the  proposition  may  seem,  it  is  our  conviction,  after 
much  study  and  many  visits  to  different  schools,  con- 
tinuing for  weeks  in  several  cases,  that  it  would  be 
better  for  both  races  if  every  school  for  both  Indian 
and  Negro  were  closed  where  no  industrial  training 
is  combined  with  literary  studies,  and  that  in  the 
South  only  those  schools  conducted  in  this  way  are 
of  any  value  in  solving  the  race  problem.  All  others 
lead  away  from  the  ideal  of  the  dignity  of  labor,  and 
in  quite  too  many  cases  create  a  useless,  idle  and 
often  vicious  class,  who  have  learned  to  imitate  the 
vices  of  the  dominant  race,  but  do  not  emulate  their 
virtues,  for  when  the  uplift  of  skilled  labor  is  lack- 
ing education  only  creates  wants  that  the  hands  have 
not  acquired  the  skill  to  provide. 

At  Hampton,  Tuskegee  and  many  other  like 
places  we  get  the  true  spirit  that  uplifts  and  prepares 
for  the  active  duties  of  life  and  the  higher  enjoy- 
ments of  an  advanced  civilization. 

The  very  fact  that  the   colored  race  has   social, 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  73 

economic  and  political  aspirations  and  ambitions, 
whatever  of  ridiculous  and  vexing  embarrassments 
they  may  bring  temporarily,  should  after  all  be  cause 
for  hope  and  congratulation  for  the  future.  For  any 
country  to  have  a  large  element  with  no  hopes,  no 
aims,  no  desire  for  progress  and  betterment  and  no 
ambition  for  a  share  in  governmental  functions, 
would  mean  a  mass  of  inertia  most  dangerous  and 
detrimental. 

Professor  Dubois  and  Colonel  Graves,  and  all 
who  would  defend  the  purely  literary  type  of  schools 
for  race  elevation,  will  do  well  to  ponder  carefully 
our  main  proposition  that  one  of  the  essential  con- 
trasts between  a  true  Christian  or  scientific  civiliza- 
tion and  the  pagan  type  is  largely  in  the  widely 
varying  concepts  in  regard  to  labor  and  its  sacred 
office  in  race  development. 

If  the  great  Froebel's  concept  is  correct,  that  man 
is  a  creative  being,  that  this  is  his  highest  attribute 
and  that  all  civilization  is  but  the  creative  labor  of 
man,  then  when  this  fundamental  proposition  is 
properly  apprehended,  the  best  method  for  all  school 
systems  will  settle  itself,  and  men  will  needs  be 
eager  to  bring  this  attribute  to  highest  perfection. 

Professor  Dubois,  while  ably  accentuating  the 
importance  of  a  high  degree  of  training  for  teachers, 
entirely  begs  the  question  as  to  which  type  of  school 
is  best  for  race  development,  in  his  claim  that  all  the 


74  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

industrial  schools  have  some  teachers  from  the  lit- 
erary institutions.  He  cannot  but  be  aware  of  the 
patent  fact  that  the  superior  industrial  schools  have 
been  vastly  fewer  than  the  others,  and  also  of  the 
other  equally  plain  proposition  that,  according  to 
the  universal  and  dominant  law  of  humanity,  to  try 
to  imitate  those  who  are  supposed  to  be  above  them 
in  social  standing  has  naturally  led  the  bright  and 
ambitious  young  colored  people  to  the  schools  most- 
ly patronized  by  the  white  people,  and  both  have 
drifted  into  the  idea  that  an  education  means  mainly 
memorizing  from  text  books,  and  that  a  college  edu- 
cation means  escape  from  the  drudgery  of  labor,  as 
it  has  come  to  be  understood.  There  can  be  no  ques- 
tion but  that  in  spite  of  the  lack  of  the  best  methods, 
these  bright  and  ambitious  young  people,  when 
transplanted  to  the  more  wholesome  atmosphere 
of  Hampton,  Tuskegee  et  al.,  will  soon  catch  the 
spirit  of  the  place  and  become  valuable  teachers;  but 
this  is  no  proof  whatever  that  they  would  not  have 
been  better  teachers  if  trained  more  correctly  from 
the  first;  and  if  labor  had  been  made  scientific,  and 
skill  in  it  taught  as  an  accomplishment  instead  of  a 
drudgery,  all  the  teachers  and  preachers  of  the  race 
would  have  exerted  a  much  higher  and  more  bene- 
ficial influence  on  their  struggling  people. 

The  able  and  accomplished  chancellor  of  a  great 
university,  who  declared  he  had  learned  three  trades 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  75 

since  he  became  a  college  professor,  and  found  in  the 
shop  work  his  best  mental  recuperation,  and  thereby 
gained  power  for  his  daily  work  in  the  class  room, 
is  a  strong  proof  of  all  we  plead  for  as  the  most  pow- 
erful aid  in  race  progress  and  the  only  hope  of  the 
colored  races  coming  to  any  self-reliant,  self-respect- 
ing position  in  civilization. 

No  doubt  Professor  Dubois  will  repel  our  sug- 
gestion that  the  type  of  theological  seminary  founded 
on  the  example  set  by  St.  Paul  is  the  kind  essen- 
tially needed  for  race  uplift;  it  was  rejected  by  the 
arrogant  Roman  aristocracy  of  the  time,  to  whom  it 
was  so  repugnant  that  they  took  off  his  head  to  stop 
the  heresy,  and  degraded  the  ministry  into  an  alms- 
taking,  non-working  class,  from  which  it  has  never 
fully  emerged. 

If  the  able  pleader  for  the  good  of  "black  men's 
souls"  will  carefully  study  the  matter  out,  he  will 
come  to  the  same  conclusion  as  the  great,  if  not  the 
greatest,  friend  of  his  race,  "that  a  lot  of  the  facts 
we  learn  in  school  are  not  so,"  and  must  be  "un- 
learned in  life,"  and  that  much  that  he  has  learned 
in  the  so-called  "best  white  schools"  is  not  the  best 
for  the  white  race,  and  utterly  fatal  to  the  elevation 
of  his  own  race,  who  no  doubt  must  travel  the  same 
pathway  as  all  other  races  and  let  the  hand  lead  the 
brain,  as  Nature  decrees. 

We  will  dare  suggest  that  very  likely  it  may  yet 


76  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

prove  best  for  his  race,  if  they  are  to  grow  into  a 
high  social  state,  to  follow  the  essential  rule  for  the 
boy  in  learning  to  swim,  to  go  by  themselves  and 
work  out  the  problem  unaided  by  the  dominant  race, 
who  will  no  doubt  always  hold  them  to  a  lower  place 
socially  and  politically,  and  will  always  exploit  them 
economically.  Of  one  thing  we  may  be  certain:  to 
arouse  ambition  along  any  line  and  not  teach  the 
hands  how  to  satisfy  the  aroused  ambition,  is  of  all 
things  most  cruel.  The  preachers  or  teachers  of  the 
weaker  race,  whose  example  or  teaching  is  tainted 
with  the  ideals  of  a  labor  caste,  are  surely  doing 
them  an  injury;  while  those  who  teach  a  self-reliant, 
self-supporting,  industrial  independence  are  but  fol- 
lowing the  lessons  of  the  great  social  reformer,  St. 
Paul,  whose  efforts  were  along  very  similar  lines. 

Professor  Dubois  speaks  of  "Industrial  Educa- 
tion" as  "adapted  to  needs  of  artisans,"  and  of  the 
"long-established  and  approved  methods  for  the  edu- 
cation of  the  white  race,"  apparently  oblivious  of  the 
fact  that  in  the  minds  of  a  vast  and  constantly  in- 
creasing number  of  people  a  handicraft  education  is 
best  for  all  learned  professions,  and  the  "long-estab- 
lished methods  of  education"  have  been  heartily  con- 
demned by  many  most  scientific  minds,  and  are  like 
almost  all  systems  and  customs  "long  established," 
far  behind  the  progress  of  a  scientific  age,  and  only 
held  in  place  by  the  law  of  inertia. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  77 

DRIFTING    INTO    TWO    CLASSES. 

The  colored  people  of  the  South  seem  to  be  drift- 
ing into  two  sharply  defined  classes.  One  class,  rep- 
resented by  the  graduates  of  such  schools  as  Hamp- 
ton and  Tuskegee,  proud  of  the  skill  of  their  hands 
and  what  they  can  do  that  is  useful,  are  at  work  try- 
ing to  win  respect  and  consideration  by  their  merits 
and  progress;  while  the  other  class,  led  by  the  grad- 
uates of  purely  literary  schools,  is  aggressively,  and 
sometimes  insolently,  demanding  social  and  political 
recognition.  And  from  this  class,  quite  as  much  to 
be  pitied  as  blamed  for  a  false  ideal  gained  by  imitat- 
ing a  false  standard,  comes  the  class  that  is  the  clog 
and  hindrance  to  their  normal  progress. 

If  they  ever  get  a  colored  republic  or  separate 
state,  it  is  the  former  class  alone  who  will  make  its 
success  possible,  while  one  of  the  heaviest  burdens 
will  be  the  latter  class,  those  who  know  more  of 
Greek^  than  of  the  laws  of  mechanics,  more  of  Latin 
than  of  the  science  of  agriculture,  and  who,  through 
unfortunate  imitation  of  the  dominant  race,  have  im- 
bibed the  ideal  suggested  by  Herbert  Spencer,  that  the 
object  of  an  education  is  to  produce  a  "literary  aristo- 
cracy" rather  than  to  fit  for  "complete  living."  If,  in- 
stead of  all  this,  the  colored  preachers  and  teachers  will 
but  study  and  imitate  the  example  of  the  great 
preacher  and  social  reformer,  St.  Paul,  who  knew 


78  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

and  taught  the  essential  nobility  of  skilled  labor  as 
the  foundation  of  a  Christian  civilization,  the  worst 
phases  of  the  race  problem  will  soon  be  solved. 

In  almost  all  the  Southern  towns  the  worse 
menace  to  law  and  progress  is  to  be  found  in  the 
large  class  of  fairly  educated  young  colored  men, 
who  can  write  a  good  hand  and  have  a  fair  education 
from  text  books,  but  having  no  trade,  can  only  work 
at  the  commonest  and  least  paid  industries.  As 
they  have  also  the  idea  that  they  must  gain  their 
living  by  their  wits,  they  drift  into  crime  as  naturally 
as  ducks  into  water.  From  this  class  comes  much 
if  not  all  of  the  active  prejudice  against  Northern- 
supported  colored  schools,  while  the  universal  testi- 
mony is  that  those  who  have  trades  are  the  thrifty, 
law-abiding  class,  whose  progress  is  a  hope  for  the 
race. 

The  many  colored  preachers  who  have  thus  im- 
bibed the  unscientific  and  un-Christian  aversion  to 
skilled  labor  from  the  type  of  schools  they  have  at- 
tended, are  powerless  to  come  into  any  helpful  touch 
with  the  unfortunate  loafing  class,  and  thus  their 
influence  is  neutralized  where  most  needed. 

"These  hands  ministered  to  my  necessities,  and  to 
those  with  me."  — Saint  Paul. 

jfnsr?"-"'  — 

CIVILIZATION  IN   HAYTI  AND  SAN  DOMINGO. 

"Labor  is  God's  education  for  man." — Emerson. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  79 

Along  few  lines  of  general  interest  has  there  been 
more  misinformation  or  more  unjust  conclusions 
than  in  regard  to  the  so-called  failure  of  the  attempts 
to  elevate  the  freedmen  of  Hayti  and  San  Domingo, 
a  striking  example  of  a  thing  the  world  has  known 
so  surely  and  so  long,  that  is  not  so. 

Again  and  again  with  fullest  assurance  has  it  been 
asserted  in  the  press  and  from  the  platform  that  all 
efforts  to  raise  the  freed  colored  and  mixed  races  of 
Hayti  and  San  Domingo  have  proven  futile,  and  they 
have  been  believed  to  be  incapable  of  elevation  to 
any  great  degree  of  civilization,  or  mental  improve- 
ment, and  we  are  told  that  they  must  be  given  over 
to  riot  and  revolution,  unless  held  down  by  the 
strong  hand  of  the  "superior  races." 

But  recently  a  student  statesman  of  Hayti,  who 
knows  whereof  he  affirms,  declares  that  the  apparent 
failure  has  come  from  the  unnatural  and  unscientific 
methods  of  education  pursued  alike  by  both  public 
and  missionary  schools,  which  have  attempted  to  be- 
gin in  the  air  and  build  a  mental  culture  with  no 
foundation  on  the  earth  of  pride  or  skill  in  the  essen- 
tials of  industry  and  labor.  The  natives  have  seen 
the  disinclination  of  their  superiors  and  teachers  to 
labor  and  following  that  universal  trait  of  humanity 
to  imitate  those  socially  above  us  have  felt  that  text 
book  lore  was  not  compatible  with  pride  in  handi- 
craft accomplishment,  They  have  been  taught  the 


8o  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

spelling  book  instead  of  gardening,  higher  mathe- 
matics and  Latin  instead  of  the  fundamental  art  of 
tillage,  and  as  naturally  as  water  flows  down  grade, 
these  people,  following  the  false  standards,  have 
tried  to  live  by  their  wits  instead  of  by  honest  toil 
and  have  drifted  into  riot  and  revolution,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  they  have  no  industrial  system 
in  which  they  have  any  pride  or  interest. 

Here  then  we  have  the  true  reason  for  all  this  de- 
cadent race  history,  this  discouraging  phase  of  the 
race  problem — the  heads  of  these  people  have  been 
filled  with  the  dry  text  book  lore,  with  facts  and  data 
that  have  so  little  to  do  with  active  life,  and  particu- 
larly for  newly  made  freedmen,  while  the  hands  are 
all  untaught,  no  pride  in  useful  achievement  culti- 
vated, the  very  foundations  of  a  progressive  social 
order  neglected,  and  a  false  pride  established  in  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  the  teachers  and  preachers  of 
the  dominant  race  to  eschew  all  possible  labor  of  the 
hands,  all  the  creative  attribute  of  man,  the  highest 
given;  is  it  any  wonder  they  have  drifted  into  riot 
and  revolution?  They  have  no  industrial  system  in 
which  the  ambitious  can  find  a  field  for  their  best 
efforts  and  so  have  fulfilled  the  old  adage  more 
truthful  than  elegant:  "Satan  finds  some  mischief 
still  for  idle  hands  to  do." 

And  the  world,  all  untaught  in  a  correct  social  sci- 
ence, has  stood  aghast,  and  declared  that  the  colored 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  81 

race  could  not  attain  to  the  civilization  of  the  white 
race,  a  statement  as  impious  as  it  is  unscientific. 
Knowing  what  we  now  do  of  the  success  of  such 
schools  as  Hampton  and  Tuskegee,  can  there  be  a 
shadow  of  doubt  that  if  there  had  been  such  in  Hayti 
and  San  Domingo,  and  hand-craft  had  preceded 
head-craft  as  Nature  provides,  and  pride  and  ambi- 
tion in  industry  been  made  the  corner-stone  of  their 
teaching,  they  would  have  had  a  hopeful  progressive 
history? 

THE    PITIFUL    FILIPINO    FARCE. 

"//  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  they  shall  both  fall  into 
the  pit!'— Bible. 

Now  we  get  word  that  the  same  pitiful  farce  is  be- 
ing repeated  in  the  Philippines,  under  the  auspices 
of  our  government  schools.  The  teachers  having 
been  miseducated  themselves,  are  scattering  the  poi- 
son of  a  false  system  in  the  dark  places  and  thus 
fulfilling  the  Scripture  adage  in  regard  to  the  lead- 
ing of  the  blind. 

A  letter  recently  received  from  a  friend  who  has 
been  a  government  teacher  in  the  Philippines  and 
who  has  had  a  long  and  successful  experience  in  this 
country  as  a  college  president,  an  intense  student  of 
sociology  and  a  humanitarian  of  wide  sympathies, 
tells  of  all  this.  He  declares  that  he  pleaded  earn- 


82  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

estly  that  the  first  steps  in  educating  the  native 
should  be  along  industrial  lines,  but  the  imported 
American  teachers  had  no  hand-craft  skill  them- 
selves and  no  approximate  appreciation  of  its  value 
as  the  first  step  in  an  advanced  social  order,  so  they 
taught  as  they  had  been  taught,  imparting  involun- 
tarily the  idea  that  to  be  educated  and  cultured  is  to 
avoid  work  and  that  labor  is  only  for  slaves  and  in- 
feriors, and  he  declares  it  has  done  untold  harm  and 
thousands  of  the  natives  have  been  spoiled  for  ever 
becoming  practical,  efficient  citizens  in  the  new  civ- 
ilization. They  are  puffed  up  with  conceit  and  van- 
ity because  they  have  a  little  smattering  of  English, 
and.  can  put  their  names  on  paper,  but  have  no  am- 
bition or  pride  in  skill  in  gardening  or  any  phase  of 
industrial  life. 

A  few  agricultural  schools  and  experiment  sta- 
tions are  a  great  benefit  to  the  older  farmers  and 
the  few  who  get  their  teachings,  but  nothing  can 
take  the  place  of  imparting  to  the  youthful  masses 
the  fundamentals  of  an  advancing  civilization  that 
must  come  from  skill  in  tillage  and  the  arts  that  nat- 
urally flow  from  it  and  from  using  the  creative  tal- 
ents that  alone  bring  to  man  at-one-ment  with  his 
Creator. 

THE  CONTRAST  IN  JAMAICA. 

"Righteousness  exalteih  a  nation." — Bible. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  83 

Under  the  more  humane  rule  of  the  British  in 
Jamaica,  the  freedmen  have  been  taught  something 
of  progressive  agriculture  and  have  made  a  slow  but 
steady  improvement.  The  relations  of  the  races 
have  been  pleasant,  no  infamous  crimes  on  record, 
no  lynchings  or  mobs  called  for.  With  better  schools 
and  more  complete  training  in  a  variety  of  mechanic 
arts  they  would  have  attained  a  higher  social  devel- 
opment, for  there  can  be  no  question  but  the  evolu- 
tionary movements  can  be  accelerated  in  this  way. 

We  now  learn  that  some  promising  young  men 
from  all  these  Islands  of  the  Sea  are  in  attendance 
at  Tuskegee  and  Hampton,  where  a  broader  train- 
ing is  given,  so  we  may  hope  that  in  the  future  there 
will  be  a  more  rapid  progress  and  that  the  days  of 
riot  and  revolution,  tumult  and  turbulance  will  be 
no  more. 

ANGLO-SAXON    RACE    PRIDE. 

"Pride  goeth  before  destruction,  and  a  haughty 
spirit  before  a  fall." — Bible. 

We  need  not  be  too  arrogant  in  our  race  pride 
when  we  look  back  over  the  bloody  pathway  by 
which  we  have  come  up  from  the  time  when  the  great 
preacher  of  a  better  civilization,  St.  Paul,  took  his 
life  in  his  hands,  to  preach  to  the  heathen  on  British 
soil,  who  were  then  sacrificing  human  beings  to 
their  superstitions. 


84  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

Neither  the  record  of  the  cruel  past  nor  the  reve- 
lations of  the  present  are  conducive  to  our  pride  in 
our  so-called  "Christ-like"  social  order.  It  is  not  at 
all  flattering  to  our  race  to  read  Editor  Stead's  ex- 
posure of  the  unspeakable  atrocities  of  the  so-called 
"nobility,"  nor  General  Booth's  "Darkest  England" 
and  the  "Submerged  Tenth"  in  a  land  that  boasts 
of  being  the  richest  nation  on  the  earth.  One  Eng- 
lish writer  of  world-wide  prominence  declared  that 
England  is  still  in  the  main  pagan,  with  a  few  spots 
covered  with  a  thin  veneer  of  Christianity  and  these 
spots  making  the  surrounding  paganism  more 
hideous  in  contrast. 

And  when  we  study  our  own  country,  with  all  our 
boast  of  freedom  and  progress,  we  find  the  atrocity 
of  "child  slavery"  in  our  factories,  with  an  army  of 
men  without  any  way  of  earning  an  honest  living. 
We  have  not  yet  evolved  the  science  of  social  ad- 
justment to  such  a  degree  that  we  may  be  very 
proud  of  our  racial  superiority,  or  we  would  not  al- 
low this,  nor  permit  thousands  of  children  to  come  up 
in  the  slums  where  it  is  impossible  that  they  become 
anything  but  human  monsters,  costing  millions  to 
keep  them  in  a  state  of  subjection  for  the  safety  of 
the  favored  ones. 

It  was  a  pagan  emperor  who  said  that  a  nation 
could  not  expect  to  survive  long  that  derived  its 
main  revenues  from  the  vices  of  its  people,  yet  we 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  85 

are  still  deriving  our  principal  revenue  from  the 
most  destructive  vice  of  our  people  and  our  children 
are  taught  in  schools  tinctured  with  pagan  folly,  and 
denominated  "murderous"  by  able  critics. 

Surely  we  too  may  well  begin  to  study  fundamen- 
tals, and  we  should  be  very  patient  with  the  appar- 
ently slow  progress  of  neglected  races  until  we  de- 
velop enough  of  the  ''Science  of  Society"  to  know 
how  to  maintain  our  own  standards  and  rightly  help 
those  who  have  not  yet  had  even  our  imperfect  ad- 
vantages. 

THE  GREAT  OBERLIN's  EXAMPLE. 

'What  man  has  done,  man  may  do  again/' 

— Ancient  Proverb. 

All  our  farcical  failure  to  elevate  the  Indians,  and 
now  the  Filipinos  and  other  neglected  people,  is 
in  striking  contrast  to  the  success  of  the  great  Ober- 
lin,  who  perhaps  caused  one  of  the  greatest  social 
reforms  on  the  largest  scale  of  any  in  recorded  his- 
tory. He  began  his  work  by  establishing  an  agri- 
cultural school  and  taught  the  wild,  rude,  robber  na- 
tives of  the  Pyrenees  an  improved  agriculture  as 
the  first  step  in  a  moral  betterment;  and  so  on  from 
this  fundamental  beginning  till  he  changed  the  whole 
people  of  the  province,  from  the  poorest,  most 
wicked  and  degraded,  to  the  most  refined,  intelli- 
gent and  thrifty  of  any  in  the  nation. 


86  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

His  history  and  great  success  is  one  of  the  most 
convincing  and  inspiring  proofs  of  our  whole  con- 
tention possible. 

THE   PEOPLE    MUST    MAKE   THE    CHANGE. 

"All  great  reforms  must  come  up  from  the  com- 
mon people!' — Ancient  Egyptian  Proverb. 

From  a  venerable  arid  venerated  friend  whose 
thought  is  always  candid  and  able  comes  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  reforms  we  ask  must  perforce  come 
from  the  demand  of  the  people  themselves,  that  what 
is  demanded  by  the  need  of  the  times  and  the 
aroused  spirit  of  the  world  is  so  far  away  from  the 
conventional  established  ideal  it  cannot  be  wrought 
out  by  the  present  professional  educators;  they  have 
not  the  power  to  stem  the  tide  of  established  cus- 
tom, but  it  must  be  brought  about  by  the  united  de- 
mand of  the  people  and  the  progressive  teachers  who 
have  already  seen  the  wrong  of  the  present  and  the 
hope  of  the  better  system,  whose  eyes  are  open  to 
the  coming  light,  and  who  see  the  fundamental  need 
of  the  time. 

"The  teachers  of  the  old  system  fool  themselves, 
and  mislead  their  pupils  into  the  belief  that  a  literary 
course  alone  can  make  scholars!' — W.  H.  Page. 

TEACHING   BY   EXAMPLE. 

The    greatest    criticism    we    would    make    of    our 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  87 

agricultural  colleges  and  schools,  where  wide  indus- 
trial training  has  been  introduced,  is  that  teachers 
who  are  in  the  literary  department  do  not  teach  in- 
dustries, and  vice  versa,  and  thus  exemplify  to  their 
pupils  the  proper  relation  between  mental  culture 
and  pride  in  skilled  labor. 

At  one  of  the  great  industrial  centers  the  Greek 
professor  is  the  blacksmith,  and  has  the  same  pride 
in  his  work  at  the  forge  that  he  has  in  his  transla- 
tions. In  one  school  with  which  we  are  familiar  the 
professor  of  agriculture  not  only  superintends  the 
raising  of  the  products,  but  also  teaches  the  pupils 
the  chemistry  of  the  same,  and  then  insists  that  they 
shall  know  how  to  cook  them.  But  we  know  of  very 
few  such  instances. 

That  such  a  revolutionary  change  in  our  whole 
educational  system  must  be  a  matter  of  growth  will 
be  admitted;  but  that  it  need  be  a  matter  of  slow 
growth  we  emphatically  deny.  The  need  and  de- 
mand for  it  is  too  great  and  immediate,  and  the 
steps  already  taken  assure  its  success. 

PREVENTION  OF  CRIME. 

"Universal  Industrial  training  will  be  self-sustain- 
ing  to  the  state  in  the  prevention  of  crime." 

— John  Ruskin. 

The  civilization  of  the  North  stands  aghast  at  the 


88  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

vast  waste  of  child  life  in  our  cities  and  the  enor- 
mous cost  of  crime  that  comes  from  neglected  chil- 
dren whom  we  know  could  be  educated  into  good 
and  profitable  citizens;  and  this  alone  is  sufficient 
motive  for  the  change  that  will  save  this  vast  outlay 
for  crime  and  its  results  by  guiding  the  hands  of  the 
young  toward  useful,  skilled,  creative  labor  that  will 
aid  in  both  mental  and  moral  uplift.  The  case  here 
is  urgent.  It  brooks  no  delay.  One  eminent  writer 
sets  the  cost  of  preventable  crime  and  accessories 
in  one  city  at  forty  million  dollars  per  year,  and 
fully  six  hundred  millions  for  the  whole  country. 
What  would  not  this  vast  sum  do  in  reasonable,  sci- 
entific educational  prevention,  in  making  of  the 
street  waifs  skilled,  intelligent,  thrifty  citizens? 

A  hundred  George  Junior  Republics  filled  with  the 
neglected  children  of  the  slums  would  be  as  economi- 
cal as  patriotic  in  educating  the  waifs  toward  useful 
citizenship.  It  is  claimed  that  an  average  of  over 
eighty  per  cent,  of  the  graduates  of  the  Minnesota 
Reform  School  become  good  citizens.  And  these,  it 
will  be  remembered,  are  of  the  bad  boys  sent  to  be  re- 
claimed, and  industry  is  the  main  thing  depended 
on  for  reforming  them,  while  it  is  claimed  that 
from  sixty  to  seventy  per  cent  of  the  average  village 
and  city  boys  who  have  no  industrial  training  go  to 
the  bad. 

The  civilization  of  the  Southland  has  an  equally 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  89 

or  even  more  ominous  question  in  the  race  problem, 
with  a  vast  illiterate  contingent  of  poor  whites,  all 
of  whom  stand  as  a  portentous  menace  to  the  fu- 
ture, but  who  may  all  be  turned  into  useful,  thrifty 
and  law-abiding  citizens  if  we  will  begin  their  up- 
lift in  the  way  God  and  Nature  intended;  if  we  will 
but  reverse  our  present  rude  and  undeveloped  sys- 
tem and  give  that  the  first  place  which  Nature  gives 
to  every  child  born  into  this  world,  the  desire  and 
ability  to  learn  its  first  lessons  through  its  hands. 

THE   SLOW   AND   UNPRECOCIOUS. 

Under  the  present  system  it  is  usual  at  an  early 
age  to  condemn  to  bread  winning  and  factory  slav- 
ery those  pupils  who  seem  in  any  way  slow  or  de- 
ficient in  power  or  inclination  to  acquire  the  conven- 
tional type  of  education.  This  is  a  great  wrong 
both  to  society  and  the  individual;  for,  if  it  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  development  of  a  higher  form  of  av- 
erage democracy  is  the  pathway  of  true  progress, 
then  should  the  slow  and  less  ably  endowed,  the 
weak  and  simple,  have  extra  pains  taken  to  develop 
what  intellectual  and  productive  ability  they  have  to 
the  highest  possible  point,  not  only  to  enhance  their 
value  to  the  state  and  to  society,  but  also  that  their 
children  may  have  the  heredity  of  better  parentage. 
We  dare  claim  that,  among  any  given  one  thousand 
of  the  so-called  "poor  scholars"  who  are  prematurely 


90  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

doomed  to  an  early  slavery  at  bread  winning,  with 
the  minimum  of  mental  training  and  with  no  hand 
training  at  all,  in  any  thousand  of  such  will  be  found 
many  capable  of  becoming  men  and  women  of  mark, 
of  genius,  if  they  could  be  led  along  for  a  few  years 
and  have  the  advantages  of  hand  culture  and  a 
chance  to  study  mechanic  arts  or  industrial  training 
in  some  of  its  branches  which  are  adapted  to  their 
peculiar  mental  drift. 

It  is  a  well  attested  fact  that  many  men  and  wom- 
en of  exceptional  ability  are  late  and  slow  in  giving 
any  evidence  of  strong  mental  power,  and  may  never 
do  so  until  some  mechanical  or  technical  study,  some 
form  of  handicraft  training,  brings  to  the  surface 
unexpected  talents  of  a  high  order. 

In  this  manner  will  colleges  and  universities  based 
on  the  plan  of  alternate  study  and  work,  and  that 
shall  hold  pupils  until  years  of  maturity,  be  of  ines- 
timable value,  both  in  creating  a  higher  average  of 
intelligence  among  all,  and  also  (and  of  greatest  im- 
portance) in  finding  and  bringing  out  many  men  and 
women  of  rare  merit  and  usefulness,  who,  under  the 
present  system,  are  almost  totally  lost  to  the  world 
and  doomed,  like  the  flowers  of  the  desert,  to  bloom 
unseen  and  unknown.  We  are  fully  persuaded  that 
if  there  were  no  other  reason  for  the  demand  for  a 
self-supporting  system  of  schools  for  higher  educa- 
tion than  this  alone,  it  would  be  ample  for  a  most 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  91 

comprehensive  effort  to  establish  such  schools  in 
every  county  in  the  whole  land,  to  promote  the 
higher  average  of  the  citizenship  by  cultivating  the 
slow  and  unprecocious  and  by  developing  the  latent 
geniuses  from  those  who  only  come  to  their  full 
powers  at  a  later  age. 

"Had  Caesar,  Napoleon,  Columbus,  Shakespeare 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  Adam  Smith,  or  Herbert  Spencer 
been  assigned  by  fate  the  lack  of  an  education,  or  the 
dreary  toil  of  an  Irish  bog  laborer,  what  would  their 
native  talents  have  availed?" — Henry  George. 

ELEVATING  LABOR  VERSUS  DEGRADING  DRUDGERY. 

"What  thy  hands  find  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might." 

—The  Bible. 

Convinced  as  we  are  that  true  labor  is  a  God-like 
attribute,  exalting  and  ennobling  when  normally  ex- 
ercised, we  are  also  aware  that  it  can  be  so  imposed 
upon  men  as  to  become  drudgery,  enslaving  and  de- 
moralizing in  the  extreme.  Booker  Washington 
tersely  expressed  this  when  he  said,  "To  work,  to 
ivork,  TO  WORK  (for  one's  own)  is  the  height  of  Chris- 
tian civilization;  but  to  be  worked,  to  be  worked,  TO 
BE  WORKED  (for  another's  profit)  is  the  barbarism  of 
slavery." 

William  Morris  would  put  into  all  labor  the 
ideals  of  the  artist,  have  all  possible  skill,  knowl- 


92  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

edge  and  intelligence  in  regard  to  the  correlated  sci- 
ences and  thus  feel  the  joy  of  working  to  contribute 
to  the  needs  of  the  world.  The  effort  done  in  this 
spirit,  even  the  digging  of  a  sewer,  may  become  a 
joyful  service  and  a  means  of  spiritual  growth  to  the 
worker.  To  know  how  to  excel  and  to  take  pride  in 
superior  accomplishments  makes  the  whole  differ- 
ence between  drudgery  and  art.  We  see  this  differ- 
ence between  scientific  agriculture  and  ignorant 
farming,  and  this  wide  contrast  may  be  seen  in  every 
vocation  and  in  every  form  of  labor,  and  for  this 
quality  of  mental  uplift  of  the  workers  there  is  no 
way  but  to  develop  the  mental  powers,  cultivate  the 
artist  spirit,  and  at  the  same  time  make  skillful  the 
hands  that  do  the  world's  work.  The  result  will  be 
such  an  average  of  high  moral  purpose,  joy  and  effi- 
ciency as  the  world  has  never  yet  seen.  "To  mix 
brains  with  our  hand  work"  is  but  a  homely  expres- 
sion for  this  wide  contrast  between  the  labor  that 
blesses  and  the  drudgery  that  degrades,  and  the  man 
or  woman  who  knows  all  the  scientific  relations  of 
the  material  manipulated  by  his  or  her  hands  has  a 
delight  in  work  to  be  had  in  no  other  way.  If  to  this 
be  added  the  joy  of  serving  a  person  or  a  cause,  then 
the  highest  blessings  on  earth  may  come  from  labor 
which  otherwise  might  be  drudgery  of  basest  degree. 
With  modern  forces  for  production,  it  is  unques- 
tionable that  four  to  six  hours  of  labor  each  day 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  93 

would  supply  the  world  with  a  plenitude  of  luxuries 
such  as  princes  now  might  envy;  and  this  amount  of 
labor  would  be  only  what  is  needful  for  healthful  ex- 
ercise, and,  when  done  with  proper  aim  and  method, 
would  give  a  moral  and  spiritual  uplift  unequaled 
by  any  other  means.  All  men  do  not  now  have  the 
opportunity  to  work.  With  shorter  hours  and  the 
worker  receiving  his  due  proportion  of  the  product 
all  could  be  employed.  All  this  should  be  included 
in  a  new  system  of  education  that  shall  propose  the 
training  of  head,  hands  and  heart  as  a  trinity  of 
equal  importance  in  the  building  of  character  and 
in  soul  growth. 

With  this  as  the  motive  for  reorganizing  our  whole 
educational  force,  we  may  confidently  look  forward 
to  such  an  evolution  of  the  "religion  of  democracy," 
to  the  development  of  such  a  high  average  of  citi- 
zenship as  the  world  has  never  seen,  with  the  growth 
of  all  the  grandest  ideals  of  an  international  unity 
of  spirit  and  interest  among  men  as  shall  make  the 
hideousness  of  war  a  thing  unthinkable  and  unheard 
of  again. 

With  such  an  average  citizenship  as  we  shall  have 
when  a  full  industrial  college  and  university  course 
is  given  freely  to  every  child,  we  may  be  sure  such 
a  social  order  will  be  developed  as  will  make  the 
adoption  of  a  short  working  day  imperative,  and  the 
people,  cultured  in  art  and  science,  will  develop  a 


94  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

perfection  of  human  society  such  as  has  only  been 
dreamed  of  by  the  poets  of  past  ages.  The  millen- 
nium epoch  may  be  surely  looked  for  with  unquestion> 
ing  faith. 

This  will  be  the  age  spoken  of  by  Ferguson  when 
"the  university  will  come  to  all  free  as  air  and 
glorious  as  sunshine,"  and  the  religion  of  democracy 
have  its  most  holy  accomplishment;  and  all  this  may 
begin  its  coming  tomorrow,  if  we  will. 

"It  is  unspeakably  pernicious  to  think  or  speak  of 
the  development  of  humanity  as  stationary  or  com- 
pleted."—Froebel. 

That  with  student  labor  alone,  an  industrial  educa- 
tion plant  has  been  built  worth  over  half  a  million  dol- 
lars and  at  the  same  time  the  students  have  acquired 
a  much  better  education  than  if  the  plant  had  been 
previously  prepared  and  they  had  come  with  money  to 
pay  their  way  through  a  conventional  course,  is  the 
second  greatest  achievement  in  importance  in  the  edu- 
cational history  of  America. 

EQUIPMENT   VERSUS   ENDOWMENT. 

"Education  is  the  most  essential  interest  of  the 
State! '-^Wendell  Phillips. 

The  time  has  come  when  seminaries,  colleges  and 
universities  should  no  longer  depend  upon  endow- 
ments for  support,  but  rather  upon  industrial  equip- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  95 

ment.  During  the  past  year  the  enormous  sum  of 
fifty  to  seventy  millions  of  dollars  has  been  put  into 
endowment  funds  for  facilities  for  higher  education 
for  the  comparatively  few.  Vast  as  is  the  purchas- 
ing power  of  this  great  sum,  it  will  scarcely  produce 
a  ripple  in  the  educational  history  or  progress  of  the 
nation,  and  will  have  no  appreciable  effect  on  the 
democratic  progress  of  education  for  the  masses, 
where  help  and  progress  are  most  needed.  While, 
if  even  one-quarter  of  this  had  been  put  into  the 
equipment  of  self-supporting  industrial  schools  for 
all,  it  would  have  marked  a  new  and  distinct  epoch 
in  educational  advance  and  set  a  new  pace  for  the 
world's  progress  as  noteworthy  and  as  grand  as  did 
the  great  step  of  the  heroic  fathers  of  the  Republic 
when  they  established  the  common  school  for  the 
benefit  of  every  boy  and  girl  in  the  nation,  a  move- 
ment that  required  fifty  years  of  vigorous  agitation 
to  establish. 

This  greatest  achievement  of  our  democratic 
fathers  helped  forward  the  evolution  of  the  race  more 
than  it  had  moved  in  centuries.  The  establishment 
of  a  system  of  Free  Industrial  Self-supporting 
Schools  and  Colleges  for  all  will  be  a  step  of  equal 
if  not  greater  importance  in  accelerating  race  prog- 
ress and  advancing  democratic  civilization. 

There  are  many  grave  objections  to  the  whole  plan 
of  endowments;  the  system  has  had  its  day.  It  is 


96  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

time  for  something  more  democratic  and  not  so 
tainted  with  pagan  abuses.  The  whole  system  of  en- 
dowed educational  institutions  is  a  relic  of  the  age 
and  concept  that  a  few  only  should  be  provided  with 
educational  facilities  and  that  the  vast  majority  must 
toil  in  ignorance  to  produce  the  wealth  needed  for 
the  favored  few.  It  is  an  utterly  pagan  concept  and 
system,  out  of  date  and  place  in  a  democratic  and 
progressive  age. 

An  equipment  of  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in 
farm,  shop,  factory  and  working  material  for  a  self- 
supporting  school  will  care  for  more  pupils  than  a 
conventional  college  having  a  full  million-dollar  en- 
dowment. The  system  of  education  under  an  in- 
dustrially equipped  school  will  be  a  correct  one,  not 
a  concession  to  false  ideals,  but  dominated  by  the 
true  democratic  spirit  of  self-help  and  perfectly 
adapted,  to  cultivating  the  creative  attributes  of  the 
pupil. 

Then,  too,  a  school  depending  upon  endowments 
must  always  be  more  or  less  handicapped  by  the 
moral  taints  attaching  to  the  moneys  received,  as 
were  the  schools  founded  by  Captain  Kidd  from  the 
proceeds  of  his  peculiar  economic  system,  even  as 
later  methods  have  tainted  and  compromised  the 
schools  dependent  upon  them  for  support.  Again, 
the  endowment  system  locks  up  enormous  amounts 
of  money  in  bonds,  mortgages,  etc.,  away  from  ac- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  97 

tive  creative  channels  in  commerce  and  industry, 
and  places  the  influence  of  the  school  on  the  un- 
democratic and  unscientific  side  of  continuing  high 
interest  rates,  always  an  undesirable  condition  and 
adverse  to  democratic  progress. 

One  noted  school,  which  was  founded  on  most 
radical  ideals,  has  been  so  tainted  with  this  spirit 
as  to  have  won  a  most  unenviable  reputation  as  a 
stickler  for  high  rates  of  interest  and  a  merciless 
forecloser  of  farm  mortgages,  a  most  unworthy  repu- 
tation for  the  moral  influence  of  a  great  educational 
institution,  which  should  be  a  radical  leader  along 
the  line  of  true  democracy;  for  along  that  line  is  the 
only  true  ideal  of  social  progress. 

In  well  equipped  industrial  schools  the  strength 
and  virility  of  teachers  will  be  best  conserved. 
Teachers  who  devote  themselves  to  mental  training 
only  have  a  very  severe  tax  upon  nerve  force  and 
personal  magnetism  and  vast  numbers  have  broken 
down  under  this  strain  of  nerve  effort  before  their 
best  years  of  matured  service  came,  while  in  an  in- 
dustrial school  they  would  often  have  the  restful 
change  from  brain  to  hand  work,  which  is  a  natural 
recuperation,  and  in  this  manner  retain  for  a  much 
longer  period  the  powers  of  nerve  and  magnetic 
forces  so  necessary  for  best  success  in  leading  and 
molding  young  lives.  Last,  but  really  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  by  working  a  portion  of  the  time  each 


98  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

day  with  pupils,  the  teachers  are  setting  the  example 
and  social  standard  of  the  union  of  culture  with  skill 
in  creative  labor  or  useful  service  which  is  one  of  the 
essentials  in  a  scientific  civilization  and  without 
which  no  social  state  can  be  made  progressive  or 
permanent. 

Were  there  no  other  reasons,  the  latter  alone 
would  justify  the  change;  and  we  feel  sure  the  com- 
ing reform  and  the  highest  ideals  of  progress  are 
coming  from  and  through  the  change  from  Endow- 
ments to  Equipments.  The  one  who  demonstrates 
that  a  well  equipped  industrial  school  can  be  self- 
supporting  will  do  a  grand  work  for  humanity  and 
write  his  name  large  as  a  benefactor  of  his  kind;  and 
philanthropists  who  will  equip  such  schools,  or  help 
to  do  so,  will  win  renown  as  helpers  of  their  race, 
and  erect  a  more  lasting  monument  than  any  marble 
or  bronze  placed  for  mere  show. 

We  are  sure  there  are  many  of  the  smaller  col- 
leges, now  struggling  with  inadequate  endowments 
or  income,  whose  usefulness  would  be  enhanced  a 
hundredfold  if  they  could  and  would  change  all  or 
a  portion  of  their  endowments  into  an  industrial 
equipment  for  self-support.  They  would  then  be  in 
line  with  the  rapidly  advancing  demands  of  the  peo- 
ple who  wish  for  the  best  type  of  a  liberal  or  com- 
plete education,  and  in  harmony  with  the  ideals  sug- 
gested in  Herbert  Spencer's  able  address,  and 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  99 

more   fully   defined   in   the  philosophy   of   the   seer, 
Froebel. 

We  also  know  that  many  philanthropists  and 
prominent  business  men,  when  their  attention  is 
called  to  these  ideas,  are  much  more  ready  to  help 
such  schools,  for  any  race  or  any  section,  than  the 
schools  for  mental  training  alone. 

We  deem  it  patent  to  all  why  our  government 
should  aid  in  establishing  such  practical  schools  at 
this  time,  and  why  our  motto,  "MORE  FOR  SCHOOLS 
AND  LESS  FOR  WAR/'  should  become  a  national  watch- 
word for  all  who  hope  for  the  time  suggested  by  the 
eloquent  Englishman,  "when  Americanism  shall  con- 
quer the  whole  world."  For  we  can  sooner  conquer 
the  world  with  the  school  than  with  the  battleship. 
Ideas  will  penetrate  deeper  than  rifle  shot. 

Tremendously  as  the  world  has  been  taught  to 
fear  our  "armor-clads"  and  the  range  of  our  artil- 
lery, they  may  yet  stand  in  greater  awe  of  the  moral 
and  mental  achievements  of  a  nation  of  college- 
trained  people.  A  perfected  democracy  will  much 
sooner  subdue  the  world  than  the  best  armaments. 
Exalted  ideas  will  win  and  hold  the  allegiance  of 
the  coming  peoples  of  all  lands  longer  and  better 
than  the  most  perfect  examples  of  brute  force. 

When  we  decree  that  every  child  of  this  Republic 
shall  have  a  full  college  course,  a  college  course  far 
more  complete  and  thorough  than  any  heretofore 


ioo  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

given,  it  will  thrill  the  world  with  a  new  expectancy 
of  lofty  achievement  as  yet  unknown  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  It  will,  indeed,  be  an  example  of  "Tri- 
umphant Democracy"  that  will  set  a  new  pace  for 
the  highest  ideals  of  an  ambitious  generation. 

"Where  there  is  a  will,  there  is  a  way." — Proverb. 

"Life  without  work  is  guilt,  and  work  without  art  is 
brutality!' — Ruskin. 

THE    UNIVERSITY. 
AN    INTELLECTUAL    AND    INDUSTRIAL    CENTER. 

When  in  all  modern  processes,  from  making  a  gar- 
den to  a  locomotive,  there  is  a  continual  demand 
for  the  highest  and  most  scientific  study  and  skill, 
what  could  be  more  appropriate  than  that  the  uni- 
versity should  be  a  great  center  of  industrial  activity 
where  the  students  can  work  their  way  through  the 
course  of  mental  and  hand  culture,  each  a  corrollary 
of  the  other,  and  then  if  they  wish  to  remain  in  the 
atmosphere  of  learning,  or  to  carry  forward  some 
post-graduate  course  of  investigation,  can  still  work 
on  in  their  chosen  vocation  and  enjoy  the  social 
privileges  of  the  place,  with  the  possibilities  of  self- 
supporting  labor  and  mental  ripening  all  provided 
for  and  open  for  their  maintenance?  Is  not  this 
whole  ideal  intensely  practical  and  possible  of  attain- 
ment? 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  101 

THE  PROPHETIC  SPIRIT  YET  LIVES. 

When  the  world  is  ready  for  any  great  advance 
in  any  line  the  prophecy  of  the  coming  change  will 
be  felt  in  many  and  far  separated  places  at  about 
the  same  time.  When  the  world  was  ready  to  cast 
off  the  curse  of  human  slavery  the  impulse  was  felt 
from  Russia  to  San  Domingo,  from  England  and 
France  to  the  United  States  at  about  the  same  mo- 
ment of  historic  time.  When  the  world  was  ready 
for  a  great  advance  in  labor-saving  machinery,  men 
of  all  sorts  were  found  whittling  models  of  sewing 
machines  and  reapers  in  many  places  and  in  many 
countries  with  no  previous  knowledge  of  each  other's 
efforts,  or  why  the  inspiration  came  to  them  at  the 
time. 

So  has  it  been  in  this  matter  of  a  revolutonary 
change  in  the  methods  of  our  educational  system. 
When  in  1868  we  penned  our  first  conception  of  an 
industrial  college,  with  its  own  plant,  to  be  partially 
or  quite  self-supporting,  and  that  should  convey  a 
better  quality  of  mental  discipline  than  the  conven- 
tional college,  some  of  whose  graduates  had  deeply 
impressed  us  with  the  fact  of  their  unpreparedness 
for  life,  we  thought  that  we  could  flatter  ourselves 
on  being  the  first,  or  one  of  the  very  first,  who  had 
conceived  the  progressive  plan.  We  have  since 
learned  of  many  others  who  had  come  to  essentially 


102  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

the  same  thought  and  had  seen  the  need  and  value 
of  training  the  hands  and  brain  at  the  same  time, 
and  that  each  was  a  necessary  portion  of  the  needful 
training  for  life;  and  all  this  with  no  knowledge  of 
each  other,  nor  any  knowledge  of  the  writings  of  the 
great  men  who  had  been  moved  by  the  same  spirit. 
Today  there  are  hundreds  who  deeply  feel  that  the 
change  is  now  imminent  and  must  come  as  soon  as 
the  needful  men  and  methods  can  be  evolved. 

The  great-souled  man,  Col.  Edward  Daniels,  who 
has  already  taken  the  first  practical  steps  to  intro- 
duce in  Congress  and  in  Legislatures  bills  for  put- 
ting the  movement  into  legal  form,  was  at  work 
preaching  the  gospel  and  stirring  the  thoughts  of 
many  in  his  wide  acquaintance  to  see  the  great  need 
of  the  movement.  Now  it  awaits  the  power  of  com- 
bined numbers  to  enact  the  laws  that  shall  make  it 
as  well  an  established  custom  as  the  common  school 
has  become,  which  in  its  inception  took  a  full  gen- 
eration of  most  energetic  agitation  before  it  was 
adopted  by  the  several  states  of  the  then  small  and 
struggling  beginnings  of  this  now  mighty  nation — a 
nation  which  can  waste  more  each  year  in  tawdry 
ornamentation  than  the  whole  thing  will  cost,  and 
where  the  cost  of  preventable  crime  is  more  than  the 
total  assessed  value  of  the  property  of  the  fathers  at 
the  time  they  took  this  great  step. 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  103 

CAN   COLLEGES   BE    MADE  SELF-SUPPORTING? 

"The  grandest  achievements  of  the  race  are  those 
that  have  been  proved  impossible" 

— Jas.  L.  Hughes. 

To  most  of  our  readers  the  above  question  will  im- 
mediately present  itself,  and  in  answering  it  the 
mental  process  will,  no  doubt,  in  most  cases,  follow 
about  the  same  lines  as  those  of  an  eminent  and  vet- 
eran educator  when  first  presented  with  the  proposi- 
tion of  free  universal  industrial  training  as  the  next 
step  in  educational  progress  and  an  essential  in  social 
evolution. 

He  at  once  assented  to  the  value  and  importance 
of  the  union  of  hand  and  head  culture  for  all  as  vastly 
desirable  and  to  the  idea  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  the 
movement,  and  that  it  would  pay  in  various  ways. 
In  prevention  of  crime,  he  admitted  it  would  be  most 
efficient,  that  it  would  produce  a  citizenship  of  re- 
markably increased  power  as  wealth  producers,  and 
after  careful  thought  he  declared,  "Whether  it  can 
be  wholly  self-sustaining  or  not  is  unimportant,  quite 
incidental.  We  need  such  a  system  of  universal 
training  for  all  the  people,  at  any  cost  to  the  state, 
to  keep  up  with  the  needs  and  demands  of  social 
growth;  but  it  seems  chimerical  to  expect  it  can  be 
made  fully  self-sustaining  and  not  hinder  its  fullest 
usefulness  as  a  general  system  for  scientific  and  liter- 
ary study." 


104  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

After  a  few  weeks  of  study  upon  the  plans  and  pos- 
sibilities of  a  system  of  self-support,  he  declared  his 
full  conviction  that  not  only  could  industrial  schools 
for  pupils  of  fifteen  or  over  be  made  fully  self-sus- 
taining, but  that  they  could  be  made  to  pay  a  fair 
dividend  on  the  needed  capital  for  equipment  and 
at  the  same  time  impart  a  quality  of  education  far 
above  that  of  the  average  college  or  university  that 
adhered  to  the  old  process  of  mind  discipline  to  the 
total  neglect  of  hand  training,  now  so  popular  among 
those  who  have  indulgent  friends  to  pay  their  bills 
and  help  them  to  attain  that  kind  of  education  whose 
chief  accomplishment  is  often,  as  Spencer  declared, 
to  create  a  type  of  "literary  aristocracy,"  of  but  little 
use  in  preparation  for  the  higher  ideals  of  complete 
living. 

Another  educator,  of  international  reputation,  de- 
clared it  is  perfectly  practical  and  in  every  way  de- 
sirable and  added  that  in  his  own  school  many  pupils 
now  gain  complete  support  by  working  three  hours 
per  day  five  days  in  the  week  and  eight  hours  on 
Saturday,  and  this  with  no  detriment,  but  rather  a 
decided  advantage  to  their  progress  and  efficiency 
in  the  academic  courses;  and  all  this  with  no  organ- 
ized system,  and  the  pupils  obliged  to  pay  retail 
prices  for  everything  needed,  or  from  four  to  six 
times  as  much  as  the  actual  labor  cost  if  produced  in 
a  plant  established  as  a  working  portion  of  the 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  105 

school.  This  is  a  most  important  factor,  not  usually 
understood  by  those  who  only  think  casually  on  the 
subject. 

According  to  the  published  reports  of  the  United 
States  Census  Bureau,  and  confirmed  by  tne  Commis- 
sioner of  Labor,  the  labor  cost  of  the  average  prod- 
ucts is  only  about  sixteen  per  cent,  of  the  price  at 
which  they  are  sold  at  retail.  As  many  oT  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  school  plant  would  not  be  produced  quite 
as  cheaply  as  in  commercial  factories,  although 
much  better  in  quality,  it  may  be  safe  to  estimate  a 
labor  cost  of  one  fourth  the  prices  usually  paid  by 
teachers  and  pupils. 

We  see  at  once  that  if  students  can  earn  the  min- 
imum wage  of  only  ten  to  twenty  cents  per  hour,  and 
work  only  twenty  to  twenty-four  hours  per  week, 
they  can  earn  a  sum  that  will  mean  self-support,  even 
though  they  pay  retail  prices  for  everything,  and  be 
more  than  self-supporting  when  the  necessaries  of 
life  can  be  obtained  at  the  actual  labor  cost.  In  this 
way  the  cost  of  living  for  teachers  will  also  be 
greatly  reduced. 

We  deem  it  only  necessary  to  refer  to  the  well- 
known  facts  in  regard  to  many  of  our  agricultural 
colleges,  our  many  trade  and  industrial  schools  of 
various  kinds,  and  to  the  well-known  schools  of 
Hampton  and  Tuskegee,  in  all  of  which  no  effort 
has  been  made  or  suggested  to  accomplish  en- 


106  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

tire  self-support,  but  where  one  fourth  to  two  thirds 
of  the  running  expenses  have  been  equaled  by  the 
productive  value  of  the  work  of  the  schools,  to  prove 
beyond  the  possibility  of  question  that  when  the 
effort  is  really  and  earnestly  made  to  establish 
schools  of  entire  self-support,  it  can  be  done  by 
carrying  a  little  further  along  a  system  already  an 
established  success  and  of  most  uniform  beneficial 
results  to  the  quality  of  mental  equipment  acquired 
in  all  these  schools. 

In  all  our  modern  colleges  are  a  few  brave  boys 
and  girls  working  their  way  through  with  no  system- 
atized method  to  reduce  the  labor  to  a  minimum  of 
time  and  effort,  but,  often  under  the  greatest  diffi- 
culties and  disadvantages,  these  brave  students  work 
on  and  pay  their  own  way,  getting  a  minimum  for 
their  labor  and  paying  a  maximum  of  profit  on  all 
they  have  to  buy;  and  these  self-supporting  students 
average  among  the  very  highest,  both  in  school  and 
in  after  life.  Had  they  a  well  organized  system  for 
supplying  their  own  needs,  the  labor  hours  could  be 
greatly  decreased  and  the  mental  benefits  of  the 
labor  vastly  increased. 

A  volume  could  be  filled  with  the  heroic  successes 
of  those  who  have  secured  a  full  college  and  univer- 
sity education  by  all  kinds  of  labor  and  under  all 
sorts  of  adverse  conditions;  and  the  higher  general 
average  of  usefulness  and  ability  of  this  class  of  grad- 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  107 

uates  over  those  who  have  their  bills  paid  for  them 
will  be  generally  admitted;  and  scarcely  any  one  will 
deny  that,  if  a  system  of  manual  and  mechanical 
education  had  been  an  essential  and  systematized 
portion  of  their  course,  the  average  of  mental  power 
would  have  been  still  higher. 

The  almost  universal  consensus  of  opinion  among 
all  progressive  educators  and  thinkers,  the  general 
trend  of  progress  in  education,  is  wholly  towards  the 
combining  of  hand  and  brain  culture.  The  only  por- 
tion of  the  problem  we  need  to  elucidate  is  how  with 
the  least  possible  financial  difficulty  to  get  the  new 
system  established  where  it  will  take  its  proper  and 
needful  place  as  the  universal  system,  and  thus  do 
away  forever  with  the  present  pagan  methods, 
mainly  adapted,  as  Spencer  declares,  "to  establish 
an  aristocracy  of  letters,"  wholly  out  of  place  in  this 
democratic  country,  where  all  the  best  thought  of 
the  age  is  to  advance  democratic  ideals  and  forever 
to  do  away  with  all  the  false  and  shoddy  ideals  of 
an  effete  aristocracy. 

To  carry  out  this  full  program  is  an  effort  of  just 
enough  difficulty  to  charm  and  arouse  the  enthusi- 
asm of  progressive  teachers  and  furnish  a  motive  for 
heroic  endeavor,  we  are  sure ;  and  that  the  completed 
result  will  make  a  great  historic  evolutionary  epoch 
there  can  be  no  question.  Nor  can  there  be  any 
question  that  the  time  is  fully  ripe  for  the  step  as  an 


log  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

important  factor  in  the  surging  storm  of  social  re- 
form that  is  now  sweeping  the  world  and  demand- 
ing attention  from  all  patriotic  minds. 

There  has  been  enough  accomplished  in  the  past 
to  prove  that  colleges  and  universities  and  other 
schools  can  be  very  successfully  carried  on,  on  an 
entirely  self-supporting  basis,  as  soon  as  competent, 
thorough-going  effort  is  made  to  develop  the  system 
by  those  who  have  an  enthusiasm  for  the  grand  pur- 
pose of  making  a  full  college  and  university  course 
open  and  free  to  every  boy  and  girl  of  the  land,  and 
the  added  enthusiasm  to  make  it  a  course  superior  to 
anything  ever  enjoyed  heretofore. 

As  an  eminent  writer  says,  all  material  advance 
must  be  preceded  by  higher  intellectual  and  spiritual 
concepts  and  ideals.  So  does  the  social  and  eco- 
nomic advance,  now  so  needful  in  the  interests  of 
peace  and  prosperity,  wait  upon  this  advance  in  edu- 
cational matters. 

A  school  equipped  with  special  facilities  for  best 
possible  courses  of  both  handicraft  training  and  lit- 
erary and  scientific  accomplishments  would  have  for 
main  summer  work  and  teaching  the  farm,  with 
stock,  dairy,  gardens  and  all  food-producing  equip- 
ments possible,  where  the  food  of  the  school  would 
be  produced  at  lowest  labor  cost,  and  a  surplus  for 
sale  at  regular  established  retail  prices.  It  would 
have  a  printing  plant  for  instruction  in  the  art  of 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  109 

printing  and  for  the  production  of  its  own  books  and 
papers,  and  a  surplus  to  sell. 

It  would  have  its  own  tannery  to  exemplify  the 
trade  and  to  turn  the  hides  of  the  beef  used  into 
profitable  product;  and  the  raw  hide,  worth  only 
three  to  five  dollars,  would  be  worth  fifty  to  one  hun- 
dred when  made  into  shoes,  harness,  etc.  The  self- 
supporting  school  should  make  enough  to  supply  its 
own  needs,  and  a  surplus  to  sell  at  market  rates.  A 
small  weaving  and  knitting  outfit  would  enable  it  to 
furnish  most  of  its  own  clothing  at  one  tenth  the 
usual  cost  in  labor,  and  a  surplus  to  sell  at  usual 
prices,  making  a  profit  to  pay  balance  of  teachers' 
salaries  and  incidental  expenses. 

The  same  with  furniture,  implements  and  fix- 
tures; and  a  great  advantage  to  pupils  in  gaining 
their  mechanical  and  industrial  training  will  be  the 
naturally  greater  interest  in  creating  the  things 
for  their  own  personal  use,  rather  than  in  making 
for  the  impersonal  market.  It  will  develop  habits 
of  care,  nicety  and  thoroughness  of  detail  which  is 
of  itself  a  moral  lesson  of  vast  importance. 

It  will  readily  be  seen  that  during  the  first  years 
of  such  a  school  there  will  be  difficulties  and  ob- 
stacles that  will  entirely  vanish  after  the  system  is 
under  way  and  the  order  established.  At  the  be- 
ginning the  pupils  will  not  have  acquired  the 
esprit  de  corps  of  the  work  and  will  lack  the  facility 


i  io  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

of  adapting  their  efforts  to  best  advantage;  but  as 
soon  as  a  few  years  of  successful  progress  have 
passed  and  the  system  is  learned  by  those  in  at- 
tendance, then  it  will  be  found  that  pupils  who 
were  of  little  industrial  value  the  first  year  will  be- 
come of  much  greater  value  the  second,  and  each 
year  of  increasing  value  in  the  productive  labors  of 
the  school.  So  the  extra  value  of  the  labor  of  jun- 
iors and  seniors  will  fully  compensate  for  the  les- 
ser value  of  freshmen  and  sophomores. 

It  is  surprising  how  much  valuable  material  has 
been  produced  even  by  children  of  ten  years  of  age, 
working  only  four  hours  per  day,  in  the  "Summer 
Garden  Schools,"  "Children's  Farms"  and  "Pingree 
Potato  Patches."  The  same  is  true  of  the  Primary 
Industrial  and  Truant  Schools,  where  braiding  rugs 
and  straw  and  making  things  of  use  which  convey 
lessons  in  handicraft  and  have  the  charm  of  novelty 
have  been  introduced.  The  work  of  pupils  of  the 
first  years  in  school  can  be  and  has  been  made  to 
bring  some  revenue ;  and  when  pupils  have  been  in 
such  schools  a  year  or  two,  where  the  aim  is  to  be 
as  nearly  self-sustaining  as  possible,  they  will  each 
year  become  more  productive  workers;  and  finally, 
when  they  enter  an  industrial  college,  will  in  the 
later  years  produce  enough  to  make  the  full  course 
nearly  or  quite  free  of  outside  cost.  The  fact  that 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  in 

it  will  be  a  matter  of  growth  is  but  the  following 
out  of  evolutionary  laws  and  proves  its  naturalness. 
If    so    be    it    should    be    best    to    give    all    stu- 
dents   more    thorough    training    in    a    chosen    and 
congenial  trade  or  industry,  or  to  adapt  the  training 
to  learned  and  special  professions,  and  this  should 
be  found  to  require  more  years  for  most  complete 
and  perfect  development,  this  is  no  detriment,  as  it 
would  be  infinitely  better  for  the  majority  of  the 
young  to  be  directly  and  daily  under  the  care  of 
teachers    during   all   these    formative   years.     The 
superior  practical  value  of  industrial  training  with 
the  immensely  better  moral  and  mental  equipment, 
coupled  with  the  fact  that  it  is  all  obtained  with 
no  burden  to  parents  or  state,  would  make  it  a 
thousandfold  more  desirable  than  the  shorter  period 
for  a  memory-cramming,  unpractical  course,  such 
as  is  now  doled  out  to  the  unfortunate  victims  of  a 
system  of  so-called  education,  with  scarce  a  ves- 
tige of  the  "drawing  out"  of  mental  faculties  in  the 
whole  course. 

Pupils  who  enter  a  self-supporting  school  at  from 
fourteen  to  sixteen  years  of  age  cannot  begin  life  in 
any  possible  manner  so  hopefully,  so  advantag- 
eously, as  in  a  course  that  from  its  very  nature 
draws  out  and  develops  thinking  powers  and  applies 
the  thinking  to  practical  efforts  of  the  hand.  The 
whole  effort  of  working  a  few  hours  per  day  to 


ii2  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

create  the  needful  food  and  clothing,  aside  from  its 
healthful,  sanitary  value,  is  most  perfectly  adapted 
to  develop  the  ability  to  reason  from  cause  to  effect, 
and  thus  strengthen  the  logical  powers  now  so  al- 
most totally  lacking  in  so  many  students  who  have 
had  only  the  memory-cramming  process  of  mental 
growth.  These  are  the  people  whose  only  philoso- 
phical analysis  of  a  sequence  is  the  oft-used  argu- 
ment, "it  is  because  it  is." 


If  the  time  ever  comes,  when  highly  educated  and 
ennobled  manhood  is  considered  "more  precious" 
and  desirable  than  making  money  or  things,  then 
will  men  and  women  who  labor  in  shop,  factory, 
store  or  office,  not  be  allowed  to  toil  more  than 
six  hours  and  will  then  return  to  the  elevating 
charms  of  home-building,  and  to  the  gentle  art  of 
gardening,  and  in  daily  touch  with  Nature,  their 
hearts  will  become  attuned  to  the  Infinite  Nature 
who  gave  the  first  "lessons  in  life"  in  a  garden,  in 
the  only  atmosphere  in  which  man  can  come  to  his 
best  estate.  And  no  one  has  attained  to  his  best 
until  he  has  learned  the  joy  of  caring  for  living 
things. 

From  the  garden,  the  trees,  the  vines,  the  flowers, 
the  fruits  and  the  foods  of  our  own  growing  come 
some  of  the  formative  influences  that  develop  our 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  113 

best  and  for  all  this  the  school  of  "self-support"  will 
best  prepare. 

THE   FIRST   SELF-SUPPORTING    INDUSTRIAL    SCHOOL. 

"And  the  Lord  God  planted  a  garden  eastzvard  in 
Eden  and  there  he  put  the  man  whom  he  had  formed 
.  ...  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  it." — Bible. 

If  our  civilization  is  to  be  freed  from  every  destruc- 
tive taint,  we  must  come  to  see  that  no  aim  or  object 
of  social  desire  is  so  great  as  the  highest  possible  at- 
tainment and  development  of  the  average  citizen- 
ship; and  the  present  haste  and  waste  of  rushing  the 
young  into  bread-winning  life  all  undeveloped  and 
immature,  to  become,  like  the  machines  they  tend 
in  factory  and  shop,  mere  automatons,  is  most  harm- 
ful and  ultimately  destructive  of  national  permanence. 

Booker  Washington  in  a  recent  utterance  questions 
whether  the  industrial  school  can  be  fully  self-sup- 
porting and  perform  its  highest  function  as  an  educa- 
tor, though  admitting  the  high  value  of  all  the 
economic  production  possible.  If  Booker  Washing- 
ton had  had  no  other  problem  to  solve,  no  work  to 
do  but  to  develop  his  school  to  the  highest  possible 
usefulness  with  self-support  as  the  only  means  of 
existence,  it  is  very  certain,  with  his  ability  and  per- 
severance, that  his  continual  presence  at  the  school 
would  have  been  vastly  useful  and  neither  he  nor  we 


ii4  INDUSTRIAL    AND 

dare    say    to    what    degree    he    would    have    gained 
success. 

But  his  arduous  work  of  raising  the  needed  means 
to  enable  the  pupils  to  live  and  study  and  work,  while 
creating  a  plant  worth  over  half  a  million  dollars,  has 
in  several  ways  been  a  national  object  lesson  of  un- 
speakable value.  And  we  do  not  believe  there  are 
many  advocates  of  purely  literary  education  who  will 
dare  deny  that  his  pupils  have  had  a  far  better  prepa- 
ration for  advanced  positions  in  life,  while  doing 
all  this  work,  than  they  would  have  had,  had  they 
gone  with  means  to  pay  their  way  through  and  had 
no  hand  training  at  all.  This  lesson  to  the  world,  this 
proof  of  the  increasing  ability  of  the  race  that  has 
come  through  his  public  labors,  all  together  make  a 
demonstration  whose  value  has  not  been  exceeded  in 
importance  by  any  phase  of  educational  progress  of 
this  generation.  It  is  a  lesson  of  vastly  greater  impor- 
tance than  all  the  seventy  millions  that  have  been 
given  for  the  highest  advantages  to  the  few  who  can 
afford  to  climb  to  the  top  of  the  university  ladder  at 
this  time,  when  all  the  world  is  trembling  with  anxiety 
to  see  if  democracy  is  to  be  dethroned  and  cast  from 
the  pinnacle  of  hope  where  our  fathers  first  planted 
its  banner. 

The  achievements  of  the  school  are  a  standing  re- 
buke to  the  system  so  severely  condemned  by  Spencer 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  115 

and  so  at  variance  with  the  teachings  and  philosophy 
of  the  inspired  Froebel. 

But  outside  his  school,  Hampton,  the  George  Junior 
Republic,  and  a  very  few  others,  there  has  been 
scarcely  any  study  given  to  an  approach  to  entire  self- 
support.  But,  while  the  data  are  fragmentary,  they 
are  full  of  encouragement.  A  recent  and  most  impor- 
tant and  hopeful  effort  has  been  started  by  that  widely 
known  and  progressive  manufacturer,  N.  O.  Nelson, 
of  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  at  his  great  works  at  Le  Claire, 
Illinois.  After  some  years  of  careful  study  of  the 
problem  in  all  its  phases,  he  has  determined  to  begin 
the  development  of  an  absolutely  self-supporting 
school  in  connection  with  his  farm  and  large  facto- 
ries. 

His  wide,  careful  study  of  sociology,  his  energy 
and  ability  as  a  business  builder,  coupled  with  his 
enthusiasm  for  this  great  attempt,  and  his  high  ideals 
of  the  practical  needs  of  such  a  progressive  move  in 
educational  methods,  will  all  assure  a  careful  but 
steady  growth  of  the  institution  till  it  may  be  the 
leader  in  the  new  and  most  important  advance  in 
education  of  the  century.  We  dare  believe  it  is  a 
much  more  important  step  in  educational  history  than 
the  gifts  of  tens  of  millions,  of  the  past  few  years, 
for  the  higher  education  of  the  few. 

At  Glen  Ellyn,  a  beautiful  suburb  of  Chicago,  Presi- 
dent Geo.  McA.  Miller  has  fortunately  obtained  a 


n6  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

large  and  picturesque  site,  with  some  costly  buildings 
most  admirably  adapted  to  their  use,  and  the  co-opera- 
tion of  several  other  schools,  and  some  valuable  in- 
dustries with  which  they  are  already  successfully 
developing  the  first  steps  towards  a  university  whose 
ultimate  aim  is  to  be  self-sustaining  from  its  own 
productive  industries  and  to  stand  for  all  that  is  most 
progressive  in  educational  methods. 

It  is  becoming  almost  an  every-day  affair  to  hear 
of  some  new  attempt  at  founding  a  school  of  domestic 
science,  a  primary  industrial  school,  or  a  departure 
along  this  general  line  of  hand  and  brain  culture,  as 
the  better  method  of  preparation  for  the  higher  ideals 
of  the  new  century.  It  is  all  only  a  portion  of  the 
great  sociological  move  of  the  age  and  time  towards 
the  higher  growth  of  democracy  as  a  portion  of  the 
religious  progress  that  tends  towards  Froebel's  con- 
cept that  whatever  helps  human  unity  is  of  itself 
religious  and  leads  to  highest  human  exaltation. 

It  will  be  time  enough  later  on  to  decide  which  best 
fulfills  the  functions  of  an  educator,  the  school  sup- 
ported wholly  or  partly  by  outside  help,  or  the  one 
that  is  wholly  and  entirely  self-sustaining,  with  strong 
arguments  and  indications  that  a  school  plan  can  be 
worked  out  that  shall  be  wholly  independent  of  any 
outside  revenue,  and  at  the  same  time  be  the  most  per- 
fect and  scientific  system  of  education  ever  estab- 
lished, following  Nature's  own  plan.  And  surely  the 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  117 

wider  possibilities  of  giving  all  a  more  complete  train- 
ing will  more  than  offset  any  trifling  advantages,  if 
there  are  any,  of  the  school  system  that  is  supported 
by  outside  help.  Until  this  system  is  found,  a  large 
portion  of  the  young  will  be  denied  a  chance  for  a 
full  training  and  the  state  will  suffer  from  imperfectly 
trained  and  developed  citizens;  and  from  these  un- 
trained, undeveloped  citizens  will  always  come  a  large 
percentage  of  criminals  whose  cost  to  the  state  will 
be  a  drag  on  the  progress  of  the  age. 

DOMESTIC    SCIENCE    AND    SERVICE. 

One  of  the  most  perplexing  labor  problems  in  our 
modern  civilization  is  that  of  domestic  service  and 
the  social  position  of  women  who  do  any  work  with 
their  hands. 

So  long  has  the  race  held  the  ideals  of  serfdom 
and  slavery,  so  superficial  have  been  our  concepts 
of  an  exalted  democracy,  so  easily  have  we  declined 
from  the  lofty  aims  of  the  noble  founders  of  the  re- 
public to  the  compromising  ideal  of  a  past  pagan- 
ism, yet  so  widespread  has  been  the  sentiment  of  in- 
dependence and  self-assertion  as  a  portion  of  the 
"American  spirit"  that  there  is  and  always  seems 
likely  to  be  an  "irrepressible  conflict"  between  the 
maid  of  native  blood  and  the  mistress  who  desires 
a  menial  servitor.  Very  much  of  real  suffering  has 


ii8  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

come  to  thousands  of  homemakers  from  want  of 
efficient  help  in  the  home  and  in  the  care  of  children, 
while  the  latter  have  been,  in  thousands  of  cases, 
injured  morally  by  contact  with  servers  of  low  in- 
telligence and  vicious  tendencies. 

This  whole  problem,  difficult  and  perplexing  as 
it  is,  will  be  greatly  helped  toward  a  healthy  solu- 
tion by  the  universally  higher  education  for  which 
we  plead,  by  making  the  domestic  science  an  art, 
as  it  really  is,  and  giving  to  cultured  skill  the  social 
regard  to  which  it  is  entitled. 

Prejudice,  fear  and  ignorance  on  both  sides,  stand 
in  the  way  of  an  early  solution  and  the  only  remedy 
seems  to  be  an  educational  system  that  shall  renew 
and  exalt  the  true  concept  of  the  unity  of  all  crea- 
tive labor  and  the  appreciation  of  all  culture  in 
the  home,  a  solution  that  cannot  come  hastily  but 
waits  upon  the  growth  of  the  ideal  that  all  skilled 
work  is  an  art  worthy  the  ambition  of  any  degree 
of  native  talent. 

Some  most  suggestive  hints  of  what  may  be  ac- 
complished are  given  by  the  eminent  Christian 
romancer  in  his  thoughtful  work  entitled  "Born  to 
Serve,"  in  which  the  contrast  is  sharply  drawn 
between  the  elevating  atmosphere  of  a  home  made 
comfortable  and  delightful  by  the  management  of 
a  cultured,  educated,  efficient  helper,  instead  of.  the 
vicious,  ignorant  servitor  willing  to  accept  the  lower 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  119 

caste  now  established  in  such  service;  and  he  also 
strikingly  shows  the  beneficial  effects  on  the  chil- 
dren of  the  home  of  association  and  care  from  a 
helper  of  real  worth  and  cultured  character,  rather 
than  one  of  superstitious  igno>rance  and  vulgar 
mind;  so  often  now  the  only  available  type. 

A  prominent  educator  truthfully  declares  that  no 
one  can  permanently  accept  a  lower  caste  without 
loss  of  self-respect  and  a  lowering  of  the  morals. 
Then  how  utterly  unchristian,  undemocratic  and 
unpatriotic  the  brutal  selfishness  of  the  coterie  of 
northern  ladies  who  would  curtail  the  school  advan- 
tages of  the  young  girls  of  their  town,  because  for- 
sooth with  an  education,  they  would  be  unwilling 
to  accept  the  lower  caste  of  a  (slave)  servant. 

How  widely  in  contrast  to  the  wealthy  southern 
lady  of  established  social  position,  who  in  an  able 
magazine  article  shows  that  all  domestic  progress 
must  primarily  come  from  the  ambition  of  the  work- 
ers for  better  social  recognition  for  merit,  is  the 
rank  inconsistency  of  people  who  cultivate  a  pride 
for  helping  to  do  away  with  chattel  slavery  while 
wishing  to  perpetuate  a  tyrannical  domestic  slavery 
and  to  inflict  a  perpetual  degradation  of  ignorance 
and  loss  of  moral  uplift  on  their  servers.  Surely  the 
essential  spirit  of  slavery  dies  hard  and  Christian 
Democracy  is  but  a  name  to  conjure  with. 

The  rejection  of  a  lower  caste  or  menial  position 


120  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

is  a  promise  of  better  things  for  the  future,  one  of 
the  many  signs  of  the  social  awakening  of  the  times, 
and  a  promise  of  hope  to  all  who  see  that  the  path- 
way of  progress  is  always  and  ever  towards  the 
higher  and  still  higher  evolution  of  the  ideals  of 
democracy,  and  the  true  motto  of  progress  is  and 
always  must  be  "Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity." 
The  concept  of  all  that  this  means  comes  slowly, 
but  the  new  education  that  is  surely  coming  will 
accelerate  it,  and  the  different  methods  of  co-oper- 
ative housekeeping,  skilled  specialists  and  the  more 
scientific  division  of  labor,  will  all  tend  to  the  solu- 
tion of  this  most  trying  of  modern  problems. 

The  inspiring  example  of  a  lady  of  most  aristo- 
cratic endowments  and  high  position  as  an  educa- 
tor, who  went  with  the  "working  girls"  to  help  them 
strive  for  better  conditions  and  a  higher  life  and 
encouraged  her  less  endowed  sisters  by  her  pres- 
ence and  sympathy,  and  the  daughters  of  the 
wealthly  in  our  metropolitan  cities  setting  a  new 
pace  by  their  help  and  advice  to  the  workers  seek- 
ing to  gain  a  better  social  place,  both  by  united 
action  and  through  a  more  careful  study  of  the  life 
problems  in  their  special  environment,  is  all  along 
the  line  of  a  true  solution  of  the  problem,  that  can 
only  best  be  solved  by  the  universal  complete  edu- 
cation for  which  we  plead. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  121 

SELF-SUPPORT    THE    BEST    EDUCATIONAL     METHOD. 

It  is  a  most  pertinent  and  important  query 
whether  the  best  educational  accomplishment  is 
compatible  with  the  effort  to  make  a  school  nearly 
or  quite  self-supporting  from  its  own  productive 
labor;  whether  it  is  best  to  turn  all  possible  lessons 
in  work  towards  producing  a  revenue  for  the  living 
and  general  expenses  of  the  school.  The  solution 
of  the  problem  will  largely  depend  on  what  is  the 
ideal  of  the  system.  If  its  aim  is  to  pass  a  given 
amount  of  text  book  examination,  then  we  would 
say  emphatically  it  is  not  the  best  system,  but  if  it 
is  to  "draw  out"  the  pupil's  deepest  interest  in  prep- 
aration for  all  phases  of  life,  to  learn  while  in  school 
what  his  or  her  manner  of  life  shall  be,  what  are 
the  personal  adaptations,  and  to  begin  in  school 
the  work  of  life  and  to  learn  those  things  that  will 
make  the  pupil  a  lifelong  student,  always  alert  to 
gain  more  of  such  information  as  shall  not  only  in- 
crease efficiency  but  also  broaden  the  intelligence, 
to  arouse  the  love  of  knowing  things  and  an  interest 
in  all  work  done  and  a  pride  in  doing  the  best  pos- 
sible, then  we  say  by  all  means  the  work  for  self- 
use  will  quicken  the  interest  and  arouse  ambition 
the  best  of  any  possible  method. 

If,  again,  the  object  of  school  life  is  strongly  to- 
wards the  ideal  of  Colonel  Parker,  to  develop  the 


122  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

mutualistic,  altruistic  and  democratic  qualities;  or 
toward  Froebel's  ideals,  to  increase  and  enlarge  the 
creative  attribute  and  deepen  the  sense  of  mutual 
interdependence;  or  to  increase  the  personal  inter- 
est in  all  things  made  and  planned  in  the  school, 
when  each  article  is  liable  to  be  sold  and  its  price 
involved  in  the  conscientious,  thorough  manner  in 
which  it  is  finished;  when  all  these  are  the  incen- 
tives for  careful  study  and  work,  then  surely  the 
most  natural  and  most  scientific  way  is  to  engage 
the  pupil's  best  effort  and  draw  out  his  interest,  and 
that  means  to  develop  his  moral  qualities,  which  is 
the  highest  aim  possible. 

By  no  other  means  can  there  be  such  perfect 
sympathy  established  between  pupil  and  teacher  as 
when  working  together  for  mutual  needs,  and  this 
gives  the  teacher  the  formative  influence  when 
helping  to  decide  what  the  pupil's  best  adaptations 
are  for  a  life  work.  Surely  for  the  vast  majority 
it  will  be  better  to  work  out  the  problem  while 
gaining  the  means  of  living  and  paying  for  all  with 
the  labor  of  the  hands  from  day  to  day. 

In  the  new  social  atmosphere  that  would  be  es- 
tablished by  a  universal  complete  educational  sys- 
tem, there  would  naturally  be  two  ideas  established 
that  would  be  dominant  and  aggressive;  one,  to 
develop  man's  beneficent  creative  attribute  to  the 
highest  and  best;  the  other,  to  replace  the  present 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  123 

abnormal  and  destructive  selfishness  with  a  con- 
structive mutualism  and  altruism,  the  only  traits  that 
really  build  in  civilization,  and  to  modify  or  do  away 
with  the  present  insane  rush  and  grab  and  greed  so 
expressively  and  properly  denominated  by  Carlyle  as 
the  "hellish  scramble."  Dare  any  deny  that  all  the 
formative  influences  of  a  new  and  most  radical  educa- 
tional system  will  be  required  to  restore  a  true 
democracy  to  its  former  high  place  in  the  thought  of 
Americans. 

In  the  industrial  system  of  today  we  find  so  much 
that  is  purely  pagan  in  that  it  continually  sacrifices 
men  to  things  and  Isaiah's  concept  is  reversed.  "Fine 
gold  is  esteemed  more  precious  than  man,"  and  men 
have  been  ruthlessly  destroyed  to  produce  cheapest 
things,  while  society  has  been  dumb  over  the  pagan 
cruelty  of  putting  the  young  into  factory  slavery,  to 
do  continually  one  monotonous  thing  with  all  its 
dwarfing,  soul  and  mind  benumbing  effect.  Even 
in  professional  life  this  abnormal  subdivision  of  labor 
and  specialization  of  study  and  practice  of  what  may 
be  hoped  to  pay  best  in  a  material  sense  has  induced 
men  of  high  mental  culture  to  narrow  their  intellec- 
tual power  by  confining  their  thought  to  one  line, 
instead  of  to  the  wider,  broader,  better  development 
of  many  things  and  many  topics  of  study,  all  of  which 
will  be  modified  by  the  educational  system  of  self- 


124  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

support,  which  will  necessarily  lead  to  some  knowledge 
of  many  trades  and  to  the  science  of  allied  things. 

The  whole  scientific  and  Christian  ideal  would  be 
to,  at  all  times  and  in  all  ways,  keep  the  main  study 
and  work,  from  the  shop  to  the  laboratory,  the 
making  of  completely  developed  men  and  women, 
and  this  should  be  the  chief  concern  of  all  art,  study, 
business  or  religion.  To  draw  out  and  magnify 
human  talents  of  highest  altruistic  use  is  and  should 
be  the  aim  of  all  teaching. 

HAND    TRAINING    AIDS    MENTAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

A  veteran  educator  in  urging  this  ideal  of  hand 
training  in  connection  with  mental  culture,  and 
making  it  free  and  universal,  declared  that  he  did  it 
not  for  material  reasons  mainly,  but  because  it  rep- 
resented moral  and  spiritual  advance. 

Another  prominent  educator  with  ripe  experience 
in  manual  training  declares  his  observation  to  es- 
tablish the  fact  that  pupils  can  work  four  hours  per 
day  at  industrial  pursuits  and  make  better  progress 
along  purely  literary  lines  during  the  school  period 
than  with  no  industrial  training;  and  he  gives  his 
unqualified  endorsement  to  the  proposition  that  a 
course  of  training  in  mechanics  and  industry  with 
the  academic  will  afford  a  vastly  superior  mental 
equipment  for  any  practical  or  professional  life. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  125 

We  know  of  two  very  able  university  educators 
whose  rule  is  to  work  four  hours  per  day  in  garden 
or  shop,  with  most  beneficial  results,  and  of  a  whole- 
sale merchant  whose  shop  and  tools  are  his  con- 
stant source  of  rest  and  recreation. 

We  are  sure  that  if  a  system  of  Free  Universal 
Industrial  Colleges  were  to  be  organized,  whose 
whole  cost  of  maintenance  was  to  be  drawn  from 
the  taxation  of  the  country,  it  would  still  be  the 
cheapest  and  best  method  for  preventing  crime,  and 
that  it  would  so  increase  the  wealth-producing 
power  of  the  citizens  as  to  be  immensely  profitable 
to  the  state. 

It  would  not  be  so  radical  a  step  as  was  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  common  school  in  the  early 
history  of  this  nation,  when  it  seemed  by  the  pre- 
established  custom  a  great  wrong  to  tax  one  man 
to  educate  another  man's  child.  To  decree  that 
every  child  should  be  kept  in  school  till  the  age  of 
legal  responsibility  and  never  allowed  to  become  a 
citizen  until  he  is  well  trained  in  handicraft  and 
has  a  college  diploma  for  a  completed  course  of  gen- 
eral study,  would,  we  are  sure,  like  the  establish- 
ment of  the  common  school,  mark  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  our  country.  The  age  demands  and  will 
sustain  the  movement. 

In  the  early  history  of  one  of  our  most  popular 
colleges,  teachers  and  pupils  worked  together  full 


126  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

half  time  at  the  heavy  work  of  clearing,  building 
and  raising  their  own  crops,  and  while  doing  all 
this  the  able  president  declared  they  made  as  good 
progress  along  literary  lines  as  has  ever  been  done 
since  with  no  work  at  all;  and  the  early  students 
had  a  higher  average  of  all-round  ability  than  later 
ones.  Similar  records  have  been  partially  made  by 
many  pioneer  colleges. 

In  almost  all  our  colleges  there  is  a  larger  class 
wishing  for  the  meager  chance  of  self-support  than 
the  opportunities  offer.  If  the  present  colleges 
would  or  could  use  a  portion  of  their  endowment 
funds,  now  locked  up  to  draw  interest,  to  build  an 
equipment  for  productive  labor,  it  would  be  a  de- 
cidedly better  use  of  money  and  open  a  wider  door 
of  usefulness  to  many  a  struggling  college.  To  be 
most  perfectly  adapted  to  the  ideal  of  a  scientific 
system  every  college  and  university  should  be  fully 
equipped  for  productive  labor  and  a  certain  amount 
of  labor  and  hand  training  be  made  a  necessary  por- 
tion of  every  course  for  every  pupil,  thus  prevent- 
ing any  possibility  of  a  labor  caste  tainting  its 
moral  atmosphere;  and  only  when  this  has  become 
universal  in  our  colleges,  seminaries  and  universities 
can  we  be  said  to  be  free  from  the  moral  taint  so 
heartily  condemned  by  the  philosophical  Spencer  and 
accepted  by  so  wide  a  circle  of  progressive  minds, 
and  the  era  of  a  perfected  educational  system, 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  127 

dreamed  of  as  only  possible  in  a  far  distant  future  by 
the  prophet  Froebel,  be  begun. 

Then  only  may  we  hope  to  have  teachers,  preach- 
ers, missionaries  and  professionals  who  shall  not 
scatter  pagan  social  standards  to  demoralize  our 
home  society  and  injure  our  influence  among  the  be- 
nighted islands  of  the  sea  or  in  the  dark  continents 
of  the  earth. 

One  of  our  most  able  educators  speaks  of  the  al- 
most mysterious  mental  power  gained  by  the  totally 
uneducated  (according  to  common  parlance)  who 
have  learned  several  mechanical  trades,  or  perhaps 
have  worked  in  younger  years  at  several  trades  long 
enough  to  have  acquired  their  essential  principles 
with  some  degree  of  hand  skill,  and  through  this 
have  become  men  of  well  known  "all  round  ability." 

This  cultivation  of  "all-round  ability"  was  the  spe- 
cial characteristic  of  early  New  England  people, 
who,  in  the  home  manufacture  of  everything  used  on 
the  place,  had  a  very  wide  education  in  mechanical 
principles  and  gained  much  skill  in  a  varied  handi- 
craft ;  and  it  developed  a  mental  equipment  of  exceed- 
ingly high  average  power,  not  only  in  practical  mat- 
ters, but  also  in  the  higher  flights  of  metaphysical, 
spiritual  and  scientific  deductions,  Wendell  Phillips 
declared  the  highest  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

Its  effect  on  national  character  can  be  seen  among 
people  from  Northern  Europe,  those  who  have  for 


128  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

some  centuries  been  tenants  on  land  belonging  to 
others,  having  no  special  inducement  to  repair 
homes  and  keep  things  in  order,  have  lost  the  "all- 
round  ability/'  but  which  is  soon  redeveloped  in 
pioneering  in  this  country;  while  the  people  from  the 
countries  where  they  own  their  own  homes  and  have 
made  and  repaired  their  furniture,  implements  and 
clothing  have  a  far  superior  adaptation  to  all-round 
utilities  and  a  higher  average  mental  and  moral  equip- 
ment. 

The  mind-dwarfing  effect,  too,  is  easily  seen 
among  those  who  have  for  some  generations  been 
confined  to  factory  life,  where  they  have  been  taught 
to  tend  some  one  machine  and  to  do  one  monoton- 
ous thing,  which  reduces  the  "all-round"  talent  to  a 
minimum;  and  from  this  class  there  but  rarely 
springs  a  genius. 

In  the  training  of  woman  heretofore  it  has  been 
almost  universal  to  neglect  totally  all  teaching  of 
mechanical  principles  or  any  handicraft  skill,  while 
it  is  certain  that  she  peculiarly  needs  the  ability  to 
reason  from  cause  to  effect  which  the  study  and  prac- 
tice of  mechanics  is  so  well  adapted  to  impart. 

Froebel  would  have  girls  have  the  same  plays  as 
boys  till  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  age,  and  have 
them  trained  along  handicraft  lines  all  through  their 
whole  educational  course;  and  there  can  be  no  ques- 
tion of  its  high  mental  and  moral  benefit. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  129 

In  a  few  progressive  schools  manual  training,  cab- 
inet work  and  even  light  forging  have  been  given  the 
young  ladies  and  it  has  been  done  with  enthusiasm 
ancl  great  benefit.  Gardening  and  horticulture 
should  be  a  requirement  for  every  young  lady  and  no 
diploma  given  without  proficiency  along  some  line 
of  industrial  education.  This  would  be  a  most  im- 
portant step  in  the  development~bf  a  higher  average 
citizenship. 

The  philosophy  of  universal  hand  culture  as  an 
important  portion  of  all  education  and  its  bearing  on 
the  permanence  of  national  life  is  too  well  known 
and  acknowledged  to  need  any  argument  among 
practical  people.  It  will  not  be  questioned  except 
by  those  who  have  been  perverted  by  a  false  system, 
and  most  of  these  will  admit  the  value  of  it. 

The  extreme  but  profound  philosophy  of  Froebel 
has  won  its  way  to  the  minds  of  almost  all  thor- 
oughly progressive  teachers  and  thinkers;  and  we 
cannot  more  radically  put  the  value  and  essential 
necessity  of  hand  culture  as  a  fundamental  portion  of 
an  education  from  the  kindergarten  through  the  uni- 
versity. His  philosophy  only  seems  extreme  when 
brought  into  contrast  with  a  system  confessedly 
tainted  and  corrupted,  utterly  unworthy  an  age  whose 
ideals  are  to  make  a  sovereign  of  every  citizen  and  to 
prevent  any  slavish  class  from  being  developed  in 
society. 


130  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

THE  LAW   OF   HUMAN   PROGRESS. 

"When  all  the  elements  of  national  life  work  to- 
gether in  harmony  for  progress,  then  material  pros- 
perity and  moral  advance  are  rapid  and  sure,  but  when 
divisions  and  discord  between  warring  classes  of  citi- 
zens come  in  to  absorb  mental  effort,  then  national 
decadence  and  death  sets  in  and  when  carried  one 
step  too  far,  then  reform  and  recovery  is  impossible." 
— Henry  George. 

These  startling  words  of  the  humane  and  able  stu- 
dent of  all  social  law  were  penned  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury since,  when  strife  and  divisions  between  classes 
were  not  half  as  portentous  as  today. 

This  philosophy  of  the  able  economist  is  but  putting 
the  essential  teachings  of  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth 
into  economic  phrase.  He  declared  that  "The  meek 
(the  altruistic)  shall  inherit  the  earth,"  and  that  "the 
strong  shall  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak,"  which  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  all  shall  work  to- 
gether for  common  progress  or  common  good  and  by 
that  means  they  shall  "inherit  the  earth."  And  all 
this  is  but  the  unchanging  law  of  democratic  econo- 
mics, as  potent  and  invariable  as  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion. Those  who  for  selfish  ends  foment  class  divi- 
sions and  strife,  are  more  surely  and  rapidly  under- 
mining the  foundations  of  the  Republic  than  the  mad- 
dest anarchists. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  131 

When  old  Rome  was  climbing  to  a  world  suprem- 
acy, her  peasantry  owned  their  own  land  and  lived  in 
their  own  homes  and  their  patriotism  made  them  in- 
vincible, but  when  class  divisions  and  unjust  laws  had 
taken  their  homes  and  lands  and  the  drift  was  to  the 
cities  and  to  slavery,  all  patriotic  ambition  was  de- 
stroyed and  the  nation  was  ready  for  the  ruthless 
destroyer. 

So  today  the  appeal  "back  to  the  land"  is  but  the 
plea  to  save  our  Republic  already  nearing  the  dan- 
ger line  through  the  rush  to  the  cities  and  the  con- 
sequent clash  of  classes  and  division  of  interests. 

Then  let  us  speed  the  plans  to  get  the  people  back 
to  the  land  and  make  it  charming  by  all  that  art  and 
science  can  teach  of  the  most  progressive  agricul- 
ture that  is  always  the  most  attractive  of  profes- 
sions and  full  of  the  highest  pleasures  of  earth.  And 
why  should  not  the  "Science  of  Society"  and  all  the 
essential  laws  of  human  development  and  the  meth- 
ods for  accelerating  the  evolution  to  higher  and  yet 
higher  degrees  of  democracy  be  taught  in  all  our 
schools,  and  all  that  can  be  learned  of  proper,  equi- 
table and  wasteless  distribution  of  created  wealth 
be  as  carefully  inculcated  as  are  the  ideals  of  perfect 
production  or  selfish  accumulation. 

AN   IRRIGATION   CITY  FOR  SURPLUS  LABOR. 

"The  common  people  are  the  class  most  to  be  consid- 


132  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

ered  in  the  structure  of  civilisation." — Walter  H. 
Page. 

How  may  the  dangerous  divisions  and  strife  be- 
tween warring  classes  be  so  hopefully  treated  as  by 
an  effort  to  build  an  ''Irrigation  City"  with  its  "In- 
dustrial Schools  and  Colleges/'  its  gardens  and 
farms,  shops  and  factories,  where  all  surplus  labor 
can  become  more  than  self-supporting,  and  let  cap- 
ital and  labor  shake  hands  over  a  project  that  will 
bring  peace  and  unity  and  co-operation  between  the 
now  clashing,  warring  interests  so  dangerous  to  our 
public  welfare  even  as  the  grand  old  hero  Oberlin 
brought  peace,  prosperity  and  a  high  social  order 
to  the  ignorant  robber  bands  of  the  Pyrenees. 

From  '93  to  '97  our  Commissioner  of  Labor  de- 
clared there  were  from  one  to  three  million  workers 
all  the  time  out  of  their  usual  employment.  The 
suffering  and  death  resulting  would  be  equal  to  quite 
a  severe  war. 

Had  this  vast  labor  power  been  marshaled  for  a 
campaign  of  construction,  as  suggested  by  the 
practical  Secretary  of  the  Irrigation  League,  and  it 
could  have  been  done  much  more  easily  than  were 
the  armies  of  destruction  from  '61  to  '65,  it  would 
have  built  several  cities  like  Chicago,  on  the  irrigated 
land,  with  farms  and  appliances  to  have  made  the 
inhabitants  vastly  more  than  self-supporting  and 
would  have  added  several  billions  to  the  taxable 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  133 

permanent  wealth  of  the  nation.  It  would  have  cre- 
ated a  demand  for  all  manufactured  goods  that 
would  have  kept  capital  employed  and  many  of  the 
idle  shops  and  factories  busy  and  would  have  created 
a  home  market  for  products,  a  thousand  times  more 
to  be  desired  than  any  foreign  market  that  must  be 
sought  after  often  at  cost  of  war. 

Shall  we  allow  this  monumental  folly  and  wicked 
waste  to  continue,  or  shall  the  Free  Industrial 
School  and  the  Constructive  Army  be  set  at  work  to 
show  the  world  a  new  example,  the  most  striking 
and  helpful  of  all  the  centuries? 

"Democracy  means  constant  social  growth" — W. 
H.  Page. 

THE    WORLD-WIDE   FOLLY. 

"Peace  hath  her  victories." — Milton. 

From  a  profound  student  of  social  problems,  who 
with  a  small  party  has  made  the  circle  of  the  globe, 
we  get  the  following :  "Everywhere  we  went  we  were 
impressed  with  this  thought,  IF  ONLY  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  would  give  the  same  earnest  study  and 
energy  to  teaching  their  people  how  to  live,  how  to 
develop  their  natural  resources,  and  their  own  best 
talents,  that  they  now  give  to  war  and  the  prepara- 
tion for  war,  how  soon  the  world  would  be  encircled 
by  a  real  millennial  epoch  of  peace  and  abundant 


134  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

prosperity!'  Soon  might  come  that  dream  of  poets 
and  prophets,  the  federation  of  the  whole  world  in  a 
brotherhood  of  unity,  where  the  ambition  should  be 
for  highest  attainments  in  usefulness,  not  in  the  grim 
powers  of  destruction.  Why  not  begin  it  now? 

WHAT   WASTED   LABOR    POWER    COULD    DO. 

"Great  waste  is  both  wicked  and  unscientific." — 
Parsons. 

Of  all  the  illogical  wastes  of  our  "Insane  Civiliza- 
tion" perhaps  the  worst  and  most  colossal  and  least 
realized  is  that  of  the  waste  of  labor  power  when 
idle. 

A  few  years  ago  the  great  city  of  Chicago  was 
burned  to  the  ground  and  something  like  two  hun- 
dred million  dollars  worth  of  buildings  destroyed 
and  in  three  or  four  years  it  was  all  replaced  and 
twice  as  much  more  created  by  the  surplus  labor 
power  of  the  country,  while  all  other  productive  in- 
dustry went  on  unchecked,  indeed  rather  stimu- 
lated and  increased  by  the  active  demand  for  prod- 
ucts from  the  well  paid  labor,  whose  increased  pur- 
chasing power  was  felt  in  every  hamlet  in  the  land. 

More  recently  an  army  of  approximately  a  hun- 
dred thousand  men  built  all  the  wonderful  "Fair 
City"  at  St.  Louis,  which  was  soon  torn  down  and 
gave  no  increase  to  the  taxable  wealth  of  the  nation. 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  135 

THE   ARMY  OF  DISCHARGED  LABOR. 

"A  hungry,  desperate  man  is  of  all  animals  the 
most  dangerous/' 

Recently  we  read  in  the  daily  press  that  an  army 
of  nearly  or  quite  seventy-five  thousand  men  has 
been  discharged  by  the  railroads  and  other  large  in- 
dustries, and  as  many  more  last  autumn,  thus  cutting 
them  off  from  any  chance  to  earn  an  honest  living 
and  wasting  a  great  share  of  their  creative  labor 
power  beside  making  them  a  danger  to  society  from 
the  very  desperateness  of  their  situation. 

The  national  treasury  has  already  a  fund  of  over 
twenty-seven  millions  in  hand  with  which  to  build 
great  irrigation  works,  thus  opening  a  most  profit- 
able and  permanent  way  of  using  the  labor  power 
now  being  wasted  in  idleness,  and  if  it  is  used  to 
build  an  irrigation  city  of  homes  and  farms  it  will  re- 
main a  permanent  addition  to  the  taxable  wealth  of 
the  nation.  If  this  army  of  idle  labor,  now  irritated 
and  antagonistic,  is  left  to  suffer,  it  may  very  prob- 
ably destroy  vastly  more  in  red  riot  and  revolution 
than  it  can  replace  in  many  more  years  of  construc- 
tive labor. 

A  few  years  ago  our  government  without  a  tithe 
of  this  sum  on  hand  or  "in  sight"  called  together  the 
largest  army  the  world  had  ever  seen  and  taught 
them  the  art  of  destroying  men  and  property  and  in 


136  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

a  few  years  they  destroyed  one  or  two  billions  of 
the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  country.  If  then  our 
government  would  at  once  begin  to  use  this  sum  now 
in  the  Treasury  to  employ  this  labor  to  create  some 
permanent  wealth,  how  much  more  sane  and  reason- 
able than  to  risk  its  waste  and  the  danger  it  will  be 
to  the  peace  of  the  country. 

Truly  to  build  such  an  irrigation  city  we  would 
require  many  men  to  teach  the  people  skilled  gar- 
dening and  intensive  farming;  so  did  the  army  need 
thousands  of  drill  masters  to  teach  the  art  of  de- 
stroying property  and  men.  We  may  well  ask  what 
is  all  our  skill  and  science,  our  schools,  colleges, 
churches  and  universities  for  if  not  to  produce  a  civ- 
ilization or  social  order  that  shall  open  the  doors  of 
natural  opportunity  and  teach  people  how  to  use  the 
bounties  of  nature  and  their  own  powers  to  create 
their  own  living,  and  thus  at  the  same  time  create  a 
"balance  wheel"  for  the  labor  market  and  use  in  a 
profitable  manner  the  surplus  labor  not  now  needed 
in  present  production  for  the  market?  We  call  on 
our  educators  and  captains  of  industry  for  an  an- 
swer. 

Valuable  as  has  been  the  lesson  taught  by  the 
great  Fair,  of  the  world's  progress  in  mechanic  art, 
we  are  profoundly  impressed  with  the  conviction 
that  the  world  advancement  that  could  be  made  by 
organizing,  educating  and  employing  the  army  of 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  137 

discharged  labor  to  build  their  own  city  of  homes 
and  to  create  their  own  self-supporting  industries, 
would  be  a  thousand  fold  more  important,  and  would 
help  forward  the  evolution  of  a  higher  democratic 
ideal  more  than  all  the  great  Fairs  yet  held.  In  so 
far  as  man  himself  is  above  and  superior  to  the  ma- 
chines he  makes,  even  so  far  is  the  development  of 
social  progress  that  shall  eliminate  the  waste  of 
men,  above  that  of  the  development  of  progress  in 
purely  mechanical  achievements. 

One  of  the  most  important  items  in  mechanical 
progress  has  been  to  prevent  waste  in  power  and 
material.  So  the  highest  achievements  in  a  demo- 
cratic civilization  shall  be  to  save  all  the  pitiful 
waste  of  men  that  has  been  the  bane  of  all  undemo- 
cratic civilizations,  and  we  now  have  reached  the 
time  when  this  great  ideal  should  have  its  due  study 
and  make  its  first  exhibition  to  the  waiting  world. 

'While  another  man  has  no  land,  my  title  to  mine 
is  vitiated." — Emerson. 

THE   REMEDY   FOR    CHILD    SLAVERY. 

"No  nation  can  afford  to  neglect  its  children." — 
Horace  Mann. 

The  words  "Child  Slavery"  bring  an  intuitive  hor- 
ror to  every  sensitive  mind,  and  we  are  sure  justly 
so,  but  as  all  healthy  growth  is  step  by  step  and  not 


138  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

from  bad  to  best  at  once,  so  we  think  the  working  of 
children  in  our  factories  may  yet  be  made  a  means 
of  grace  to  the  poor  children  of  the  mountains,  by 
giving  them  training  in  gardens  and  schools  which 
they  could  not  have  but  for  the  chance  to  earn  some 
of  its  cost. 

If  the  children  were  to  be  divided  into  shifts  to 
work  a  few  hours  and  then  study  or  work  in  the 
gardens  and  shops  and  thus  do  what  they  can  with- 
out abuse  of  their  growing  powers,  it  would  mitigate 
the  crying  evil  and  gradually  open  the  way  to  the 
time  when  no  child  shall  be  allowed  to  labor  for 
wages  till  of  mature  age. 

In  accord  with  the  growing  spirit  of  the  age,  the 
adults  should  also  be  divided  into  shifts  and  not  al- 
lowed to  work  in  the  air  of  any  factory  or  shop  over 
eight  hours  at  a  time.  They  should  then  be  trained  in 
gardening,  mechanics  and  those  arts  that  will  make 
them  self-reliant,  self-respecting,  self-supporting 
people,  who  alone  are  fitted  to  be  the  ruling  citizens 
of  a  Republic.  The  fact  is  already  well  established 
that  intelligent  labor  is  always  of  more  value  than 
untrained,  even  in  tending  the  almost  automatic  ma- 
chinery of  modern  production. 

Only  in  some  such  way  as  this  can  a  state  escape 
execration  for  allowing  its  children  to  be  destroyed 
by  thousands  to  make  profits  for  soulless  corpora- 
tions. If  the  poor  children  of  the  mountains  can 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  139 

earn  a  chance  for  gaining  a  wider  outlook,  and  a 
training  for  an  independent  and  intelligent  life  by 
giving  a  portion  of  their  time  to  the  slavish  labor 
and  wages  of  the  factory  system,  it  may  be  one  stei) 
in  advance;  but  to  give  their  whole  time  as  now  to 
the  soul  and  body  destroying  factory  slavery  is  a 
paganism,  not  excelled  in  atrocity  by  any  story  of  all 
the  past  slaveries  in  the  world's  cruel  history. 

If  all  the  states  of  our  country  would  but  heed  the 
words  of  that  able  son  of  the  South  who  says 
"the  children  of  a  state  are  its  most  valuable  of  un- 
developed resources  and  let  no  greed  of  gain  chain 
them  to  a  destructive  slavery." 

NERVOUS   AMERICANS. 

"AMERICANITIS." 

"A  people  who  have  become  physically  degenerate, 
will  also  be  morally  and  mentally  decadent" 

No  student  of  social  progress  or  decline  can  learn 
of  the  appalling  increase  in  nervous  diseases  and  the 
constantly  increasing  number  of  nervous  wrecks 
among  the  American  people,  with  all  the  attendant 
suffering  and  loss  of  mental  power,  without  the  most 
pessimistic  forebodings  for  the  future.  And  it  is 
practically  certain  that  a  great  share  of  it  comes 
from  our  unnatural,  unscientific  school  system,  with 
its  high  pressure  and  long  continued  nerve  strain 


140  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

and  almost  total  neglect  of  physical  exercise  and 
muscle  development;  while  with  a  proper  school 
system  the  effect  would  be  to  correct  any  tendency 
towards  nerve  weakness  from  other  causes  and  to 
produce  robust  bodies  with  ample  strength  of  nerve 
and  mental  power  for  the  most  strenuous  of  life's 
activities. 

Instead  of  weakening  strong  children,  a  proper 
educational  system  should  strengthen  weak  chil- 
dren. The  weak  and  nervous  child  should  come 
from  its  school  period  with  its  nerve  strength  built 
up  instead  of  enervated  and  in  so  many  cases  entirely 
destroyed. 

The  day  for  the  suggestion  that  any  class  of  pupils 
cannot  stand  the  strain  of  a  course  of  study  in  school, 
college,  or  university  has  gone  by,  and  the  day  is 
dawning  when  the  weak  and  nervous  girl  or  boy  will 
be  sent  to  college  or  university  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  building  up  a  robust  body,  and  a  vigorous  en- 
during nerve  power,  while  attaining  to  the  very 
broadest  and  most  complete  educational  course  pos- 
sible to  gain  from  an  institution  of  learning. 

"Any  study  that  is  not  recreative  to  a  growing  child 
is  always  injurious." — Dr.  Dewey. 

"I  would  rather  have  illiterates  for  citizens  than 
nerve-wrecks." — Nelson. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  141 

THE  EDUCATOR'S  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"The  mute  appeal  of  neglected  children  is  to  you 
the  voice  of  God!'—W.  A.  Page. 

It  is  a  most  severe  reflection  on  our  associated 
educators,  but  we  find  many  teachers  who  admit  that 
no  adequate  attempt  has  yet  been  made  to  strengthen 
the  weaker  children,  or  guard  against  injury  to  ner- 
vous ones.  In  the  name  of  our  country's  future,  in 
the  name  of  hundreds  of  children  killed  and  the  thou- 
sands injured  and  in  the  name  of  the  hosts  of  adult 
sufferers,  we  call  upon  and  beg  of  our  National  Edu- 
cational Association  that  this  appalling  condition  be 
given  their  most  profound  and  serious  consideration. 
The  thought  of  the  world  is  too  much  aroused,  the  im- 
portance of  the  case  is  too  great  to  be  pushed  aside 
with  neglect  any  longer. 

"To  talk  about  education  in  a  democratic  country 
as  less  than  the  free  education  for  every  child  is  a 
mockery."— W.  H.  Page. 

"For  unto  whom  much  is  given,  of  him  shall  be 
much  required." — Bible. 

If  it  is  approximately  or  remotely  correct  to 
charge  that  our  school  system  is  a  menace  to  the 
health  and  nerves  of  the  nation's  children,  a  cause 
of  death  to  many  and  an  irreparable  injury  to  more 
and  a  danger  to  all,  then  it  is  a  national  disgrace  and 
danger,  for  the  children  of  today  are  the  people  of 


142  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

the  nation's  defense  of  tomorrow.  And  a  charge  of 
injury  where  there  should  be  great  bodily  as  well  as 
mental  benefit,  is  of  so  startling  importance  as  imper- 
atively to  demand  immediate  attention  from  all  who 
have  the  educational  interests  of  the  nation  in  their 
hands.  They,  of  all  others,  should  take  immediate 
measures  to  repel  the  serious  charge  of  a  murderous 
system  or  take  the  most  heroic  steps  to  change  the 
methods  so  as  to  avoid  all  possibility  of  doing  so  se- 
rious a  wrong  to  their  sacred  trust. 

This  nation's  life  has  cost  too  much  and  the  hopes 
of  the  world  are  too  intensely  centered  in  our  wel- 
fare to  allow  any  possible  avoidable  injury  to  come 
to  the  rising  generation  of  those  who  must  assume 
the  tremendous  responsibility  of  carrying  forward 
the  ideals  of  a  "Triumphant  Democracy." 

"The  proper  question  at  examination  should  not  be, 
what  have  you  learned  from  text  books,  but  what 
have  you  become?"  For  ivhat  activities  are  you  pre- 
pared? 

MORE  FOR  SCHOOLS  AND  LESS  FOR  WAR. 

"The  growth  of  the  war  spirit  is  a  sure  sign  of 
moral  decadence." 

The  Japanese  war  proved  beyond  question  that  the 
art  of  destruction  has  made  even  greater  progress 
than  the  art  of  invulnerability  in  making  battleships, 
invincible  as  they  have  seemed.  We  now  know  that 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  143 

the  great  steel  armoured  ships,  costing  so  many  mil- 
lions, can  be  destroyed  like  an  egg  shell  by  the  fear- 
ful engines  of  destruction  modern  science  has  enabled 
us  to  perfect.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  this 
will  continue  to  be  more  and  more  so,  and  that  in 
the  near  future  it  will  be  impossible  to  make  a  ship, 
if  it  is  not  already  so,  that  will  not  be  at  the  mercy 
of  an  alert  and  active  foe  and  liable  to  be  shattered 
and  sunk  in  a  moment  at  any  time. 

In  view,  then,  of  all  this,  and  in  view  of  the  worse 
and  more  destructive,  demoralizing  effect  of  culti- 
vating the  war  spirit  among  our  people — always  a 
degrading  influence — how  unspeakably  foolish  and 
wicked  to  squander  millions  of  wealth  on  battleships 
when  so  many  of  our  poor  people  are  held  in  the  un- 
speakable thraldom  of  illiteracy,  the  worst  slavery 
the  mind  can  conceive. 

Does  any  sane  mind  for  one  moment  believe  there 
could  be  a  particle  of  danger,  if  this  Republic  should 
at  once  announce  to  the  world  that  we  will  have  no 
more  war,  that  from  now  on  we  will  disarm  and  scat- 
ter our  silly  army  and  navy  and  hereafter  depend  on 
the  world's  court  of  arbitration  to  settle  all  our  con- 
troversies, if  so  be  we  ever  have  any  to  settle?  In- 
stead of  all  this  worse  than  wasted  effort  let  us  an- 
nounce to  the  world  that  we  will  at  once  begin  to 
enlarge  our  schools  and  colleges,  so  that  every  child 
and  adult  too  who  wishes  it  shall  not  only  be  taught 


144  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

to  read  and  write,  but  shall  also  have  a  complete 
training  of  hands  and  head  and  heart  in  all  that  will 
make  him  the  highest  type  of  citizen  the  world  has 
ever  seen  in  both  intelligence  and  efficiency  as  a 
wealth  producer  and  cultured  in  all  high  ideals  of 
esthetic  living. 

If  we  should  announce  to  the  world  that  instead 
of  a  portion  of  our  people  being  taught  the  arts  of 
destruction,  they  shall  all  be  taught  more  fully  than 
ever  before  heard  of  in  the  annals  of  the  world's  his- 
tory, in  the  sciences  of  agriculture  and  mechanic 
arts,  also  that  all  our  children  during  the  formative 
period  of  their  youth  shall  be  kept  under  the  mold- 
ing influence  of  teachers,  with  the  end  and  aim  al- 
ways in  view  of  making  each  and  every  one  of  them 
useful  citizens  of  the  highest  type  possible  to  develop 
from  their  given  talents,  does  any  sane  mind  doubt 
that  such  a  step  would  at  once  set  a  new  pace  for  the 
world's  progress  and  be  the  actual  means  of  bringing 
in  that  era,  so  dimly  foreseen  by  the  ancient  seers, 
when  wars  shall  be  no  more? 

A  little  more  than  a  century  ago  we  set  the  world 
an  example  of  forming  a  government  with  a  dem- 
ocratic constitution  and  that  first  radical  step  has 
been  followed  more  or  less  closely  by  nearly  one 
hundred  countries  who  now  have  a  constitutional 
government. 

May  we  not  then  hope  that  every  patriot  heart 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  145 

will  join  our  cry  and  ask  that  we  shall  have  a  still 
more  inclusive  demand  than  our  motto  and  let  it  be: 
"More  for  schools  and  naught  for  war." 

PLAUSIBLE    BUT    PERNICIOUS    SENTIMENTS. 

In  one  of  the  ablest  of  recent  books  written  by  a  col- 
ored man  pleading  for  the  education  and  betterment  of 
his  unfortunate  race  we  find  the  following  sentiments 
expressed.  He  says,  "Teach  the  thinkers  to  think  and 
the  workers  to  work;"  followed  by  the  statement  that 
"It  is  silly  to  make  a  scholar  a  blacksmith,  but  sillief 
still  to  make  a  blacksmith  a  scholar!' 

Innocent  as  these  plausible  sentences  look  to  the 
casual  reader,  we  deem  them  full  of  the  subtlest  poison 
to  his  own  struggling  race  and  subversive  of  all  demo- 
cratic progress  to  any  race  or  people.  This  ideal  of 
"teaching  the  thinkers  to  think"  and  not  to  work  and 
the  "workers  to  work"  and  not  to  think  for  their  own 
protection,  if  carried  to  its  conclusion  would  again 
naturally  and  inevitably  lead  to  just  such  a  state  of 
society  as  prepared  the  way  for  the  ruin  of  the  repub- 
lics of  old  Greece  and  Rome,  where  a  small  coterie  of 
well-educated  men  "taught  to  think"  but  not  to  work 
nor  to  respect  the  workers,  thought  out  ways  to  re- 
duce the  "workers  who  had  been  taught  to  work"  to 
the  most  abject  and  pitiful  poverty  and  slavery  that 
has  ever  disgraced  humanity,  and  these  "thinkers"  be- 


146  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

came  the  most  arrogant  tyrants  and  profligates  in  all 
the  world's  sad  history  and  this  baneful  sentiment  has 
always  and  always  will  to  the  end  of  time  tend  to 
bring  men  to  this  condition  if  carried  to  its  culmina- 
tion. 

ARISTOCRATIC,  TYRANNICAL,  LITERARY  MEN. 

"The  faults  and  vices  of  our  philosophy  and  liters 
ture  are  attributable  to  the  enervated  habits  of  our 
literary  classes." — Emerson. 

There  is  no  aristocracy  more  arrogant  or  more 
tyrannical  than  men  of  letters  when  their  education 
has  been  of  the  kind  so  caustically  described  by  Her- 
bert Spencer  as  "not  adapted  to  fit  for  complete  living 
and  usefulness  but  to  form  a  class  of  literary  aristo- 
cracy" different  and  separate  from  the  class  of  work- 
ers. No  formula  could  be  more  effective  than  this  of 
the  man  who  pleads  so  eloquently  for  the  good  of 
"Black  folk  souls"  to  degrade  the  "thinkers"  to  a 
state  of  uselessness,  crime  and  folly  and  the  "work- 
ers" to  abject  and  hopeless  slavery. 

How  widely  in  contrast  is  the  suggestive  epigram 
of  the  broadguage  author  of  "The  Religion  of  Demo- 
cracy" who  so  tersely  says  "The  glory  of  thinking  is 
in  work  and  the  dignity  of  work  is  in  thinking." 

Who  would  dare  suggest  the  "silliness"  of  develop- 
ing a  generation  of  such  "learned  blacksmiths"  as 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  147 

Elihu  Burritt,  who  literally  "stood  before  Kings"  be- 
cause of  his  great  ability,  which  came  from  the  very 
mixture  of  brawn  and  brain  that  is  the  only  true 
ideal  of  the  high  culture  for  which  we  so  earnestly 
plead.  If  our  blacksmiths,  carpenters,  farmers  and 
all  workers  could  thus  be  "taught  to  think  and  to 
work,"  to  know  of  the  science  of  society  and  the 
philosophy  of  political  economy,  for  their  own  pro- 
tection, how  much  less  of  real  slavery  we  would  have 
to  curse  both  classes,  those  who  rule  to  ruin  and  those 
who  are  ruined  by  the  ruling. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC   FORMULA. 

A  thousand  times  would  we  reiterate  the  formula 
"Let  the  Thinkers  be  taught  to  think,  and  to  WORK, 
and  to  respect  all  who  work  with  skill,  and  let  all  the 
Workers  be  taught  to  THINK  for  their  own  protec- 
tion.^ Let  every  blacksmith,  fanner  and  worker  have 
a  high  mental  development,  let  him  know  of  all  sci- 
ences allied  to  his  work,  and  above  all,  let  him  know 
of  social  science  and  the  laws  and  philosophy  of 
democratic  political  economy  and  understand  all  the 
intricate  schemes  of  the  "thinkers  who  have  been 
taught  to  think,"  and  not  to  work,  for  robbing  and 
enslaving  with  invisible  chains  those  whose  work  pro- 
duces all  the  wealth  for  the  "thinkers." 

Nor  must  we  go  back  to  old  Greece  or  Rome  for 
illustrations  of  the  baneful  effects  of  this  pernicious 


148 


INDUSTRIAL   AND 


formula  of  the  miseducated,  misguided,  mistaken  man, 
who  has  been  led  to  suppose  that  the  present  civiliza- 
tion is  the  ideal  for  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  or  that  the 
conventional  system  of  education  is  in  any  degree  a 
scientific  one  or  adapted  to  democratic  progress  or 
even  for  the  highest  development  of  a  true  order  of 
scholarship. 

THE  ENGLISH  "THINKERS^  ENSLAVING  FORMULA. 

We  need  but  to  go  to  our  mother  country,  Eng- 
land, or  to  observe  the  present  conditions  and  ten- 
dencies in  all  the  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  to  see  the 
pernicious  workings  of  this  false  formula. 

In  England  the  "thinkers,  who  have  been  taught 
to  think,"  for  their  own  good  only,  have  thought  out 
a  formula  of  finance  that  has  diverted  an  almost  un- 
thinkable amount  of  unearned  wealth  into  the  coffers 
of  a  few  great  bankers  who  have  thereby  been  made 
the  financial  autocrats  of  the  whole  world  and  has 
put  into  their  hands  the  interest-bearing  bonds  of 
nearly  every  nation  on  earth  as  well  as  those  of  nearly 
every  railroad  in  the  world,  and  within  a  given  time, 
according  to  reliable  statistics,  has  taken  from  the 
United  States  over  five  billions'  worth  of  gold  and 
silver  and  other  labor  products  for  which  we  have  re- 
ceived no  tangible  returns.  It  has  all  been  a  gratui- 
tous tribute  to  their  system. 

Their  formula  was,  "Base  all  money  on  gold  and 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  149 

for  every  dollar  of  gold  obtained,  issue  ten  dollars  or 
more  of  interest-bearing  credits  and  the  world  shall 
pay  us  untold  tribute''  And  in  the  vast  extension  of 
this  plan  more  unearned  wealth  has  been  accumulated 
than  was  ever  before  put  into  the  hands  of  any  one 
human  agency.  The  pathetic  side  of  it  all  is  that 
it  has  come  from  the  unpaid  toil  of  millions  of  those 
"workers  who  have  been  taught  to  work  but  not  to 
think  for  their  own  protection."  This  system  is  still 
at  work  and  the  world's  workers  are  unaware  of  its 
subtle  power  to  rob  and  enslave. 

This  fomula  "ten  dollars  of  organized  credit,  bear- 
ing interest,  for  every  dollar  of  gold"  and  its  vast 
enlargement  until  in  many  cases  there  have  been  many 
times  ten  times  the  credit  bearing  interest  for  every 
one  dollar  of  gold  in  hand,  is  the  height  of  the  art  of 
robbery  and  enslavement  ye$  attained!  by  English 
"thinkers  who  have  been  taught  to  think  and  not  to 
work"  for  what  they  want. 

The  profligate  character  of  these  arrogant  English 
"thinkers"  who  have  enslaved  the  world  is  told  by 
the  shameful  revelations  of  Editor  Stead.  It  could 
hardly  be  worse  and  the  abject  conditions  to  which 
they  have  reduced  the  "workers"  is  told  by  the  long, 
cruel  history  of  Ireland  and  General  Booth's  "In 
Darkest  Africa"  and  its  "Submerged  Tenth."  Worse, 
if  possible,  than  the  pitiful  slavery  of  old  Rome. 


150  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

AMERICA'S  FORMULA,  "WATERED  STOCKS." 

But  in  America  our  "thinkers"  have  attained  to  a 
yet  higher  degree  in  the  consummate  art  of  robbery 
and  enslavement  of  the  "workers."  "Watering  stocks," 
begun  in  a  small  way  less  than  a  generation  ago  by  the 
doughty  dry  land  commodore,  whose  patriotism  and 
democracy  were  tersely  epitomized  in  the  oft-quoted 
phrase  "Damn  the  public"  has  become  like  a  Car  of 
Juggernaut  and  we  now  have  a  veritable  king  of 
diluted  securities  whose  issuance  of  beautifully  litho- 
graphed certificates  of  fictitious  imitation  investments 
has  been  as  the  letting  out  of  many  waters  and  thou- 
sands have  been  overwhelmed  by  the  flood.  Recently 
his  associates  boasted  that  at  one  sitting  they  had  suc- 
cessfully issued  thirty-six  millions  of  this  fictitious 
capital  on  which  labor  must  pay  dividends. 

And  this  ethereal  type  of  "vested  interests"  has  all 
the  legal  power  to  draw  ''dividends"  from  labor's 
products  that  the  most  solid  forms  of  "accumulated 
capital"  have,  and  so  rapid  is  the  increase  of  this  form 
of  enslavement  that  it  will  be  but  a  short  time  till  the 
total  thraldom  of  our  "workers"  will  be  consum- 
mated. 

Teaching  "thinkers  to  think,"  and  not  to  work,  and 
teaching  "workers  to  work,"  and  not  to  think,  for 
their  own  protection,  has  been  the  wrong  method  in 
all  the  past  and  it  is  what  we  most  heartily  condemn 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  151 

in  the  present  system  of  education.  It  at  once  con- 
stitutes two  classes  of  society  with  divergent,  clashing 
interests,  that,  as  Henry  George  says,  will  only  and 
can  only  result  in  social  disintegration  and  national 
decadence  and  death. 

CANNIBALISTIC    CONCEPTS    CONTINUED. 

All  of  these  systems  of  enslavement  of  the  "work- 
ers" whose  toil  produces  the  wealth  of  the  world,  is 
but  a  continuation  and  variation  of  the  old  cannibal- 
istic concept  that  the  strong  and  smart  man  shall  eat 
or  prey  upon  the  weak  and  simple  man,  and  these  re- 
fined methods  are  in  this  realm  what  the  "Auto/'  the 
"Wireless  Telegraphy,"  and  the  "Dirigible  Flying 
Machine"  are  in  the  realm  of  mechanics,  the  highest 
achievements  now  conceivable  to  our  imaginations. 

Surely  our  misleading  pleader  for  his  enslaved  race 
will  need  the  long  life  of  the  Patriarchs  and  the  as- 
siduity of  an  Apostle,  to  undo  the  harm  his  pernicious 
formula  may  have  done  to  the  young  of  his  race  who 
will  no  doubt  look  to  him  as  an  "Oracle"  trained  in 
the  best  institutions  (so  called)  of  learning  of  the 
dominant  race. 

But  thank  God  there  is  a  rising  tide  of  "thinkers" 
who  have  seen  the  folly  of  going  back  to  pagan  social 
standards  and  have  a  high  concept  of  man  as  a  creator, 
as  well  as  a  thinker. 

The  days  of  the  old  system  are  numbered  and  it  is 


1 52  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

now  only  a  question  of  how  soon  the  system  of  uni- 
versal hand  culture  can  be  established,  and  with  it  to 
be  re-established  the  true  Christian  ideal  of  the  God- 
like attribute  of  creative  labor  as  an  expression  of 
man's  highest  mental  and  spiritual  development. 

ESSENTIALS    OF    AN    EDUCATIONAL    SYSTEM. 

What  then  are  the  essentials  of  an  educational  sys- 
tem for  an  advancing  Christian  and  democratic  civili- 
zation and  suited  to  the  aims  of  a  twentieth  century 
progress  and  the  hope  of  a  permanent  national  life? 

We  answer:  Well  equipped  plants,  with  abundant 
land  for  gardens,  hothouses,  dairies,  etc.,  and  the  neces- 
sary appliances  for  carrying  on  the  work ;  shops  of  all 
kinds  furnished  with  necessary  materials,  that  the 
labor  of  students  may  be  used  to  advantage;  and 
teachers  who  will  work  with  pupils;  all  this  added  to 
the  usual  outfit  for  an  academic  education,  and  the 
equipment  is  complete.  This  for  a  general  outline. 

In  detail,  a  school  of  this  sort  should  be  estab- 
lished in  every  county,  and  such  forms  of  manufac- 
turing and  agriculture  undertaken  as  are  adapted  to 
the  locality.  Eventually  every  college  and  university 
a  center  for  industrial  activity,  as  well  as  mental 
training. 

Let  but  the  firm  determination  come  to  parents  and 
school  authorities  alike  that  this  killing,  high  pressure 
nerve  strain  shall  cease,  and  at  once;  this  memory 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  153 

cramming  from  text  books  be  modified  by  more  gen- 
eral and  practical  instruction,  and  the  school  day  be 
cut  squarely  in  two;  and  it  be  decreed  that  hereafter 
only  half  of  the  day's  time  shall  be  given  to  text  book 
study;  and  in  a  hundred  different  districts  will  the 
way  open  to  the  better  method  of  handicraft  training, 
and  the  study  and  application  of  mechanical  princi- 
ples. 

We  have  this  idea  of  handiwork  in  the  kindergar- 
ten; later  we  find  it  in  the  manual  training  that  is 
being  introduced  into  our  schools  so  rapidly  and 
successfully.  Let  us  carry  this  idea  still  further,  and 
when  the  boys  and  girls  are  old  enough  to  begin  wage 
earning  and  feel  the  necessity  of  leaving  school  that 
they  may  add  somewhat  to  the  revenue  of  the  family, 
or  at  least  supply  their  own  needs,  let  us  have  a 
universal  system  of  free,  self-supporting  industrial 
schools,  thoroughly  equipped  by  the  state,  where  with- 
out further  cost  to  state  or  parents,  they  may  cultivate 
the  threefold  nature,  hand,  head  and  heart,  to  its 
highest  capacity. 


154  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

SUMMARY. 

If  then  an  essential  difference  between  pagan  and 
Christian  civilizations  is  in  their  widely  varying  con- 
cepts in  regard  to  the  nobility  of  labor; 

If  the  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  is  still  tainted  with 
the  pagan  idea  of  the  disgrace  of  labor; 

If  hand  training  is  of  such  immense  value  as  the 
complement  of  mental  culture  and  together  they  tend 
to  form  a  high  moral  character; 

If  our  present  school  system  is  based  upon  pagan 
ideals  and  tends  to  produce  a  "labor  caste;" 

If  our  schools  do  not  fit  for  "complete  living,"  and 
our  graduates  must  "unlearn  in  practical  life  much 
that  they  learn  in  schools;" 

If  the  influence  of  teachers  will  be  greatly  increased 
when  they  work  with  their  pupils  in  garden  and  shop ; 

If  it  will  be  an  advantage  in  the  forming  of  char- 
acter for  pupils  to  remain  longer  under  the  guidance 
of  teachers; 

If  the  children  of  the  slums  and  the  poor  and 
ignorant  everywhere  can  be  elevated  in  their  three- 
fold nature; 

If  the  children  of  the  profligate  rich  can  be  changed 
into  useful  members  of  society; 

If  a  larger  proportion  of  feeble-minded  and  unpre- 
cocious  children  can  be  developed  to  a  greater  degree 
of  usefulness  through  the  training  of  the  physical ; 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  155 

If  Industrial  Training  be  the  most  efficient  means 
for  the  prevention  of  crime; 

If  creative  labor  will  prevent  immorality ; 

If  it  be  true  that  pupils  have  greater  pleasure  and 
incentive  in  working  to  supply  their  own  needs  than 
in  working  without  special  aim; 

If  skilled  hands  and  cultured  brains  give  the  highest 
happiness ; 

If  our  present  school  system  does  not  teach  the 
"worker  to  think"  and  the  "thinker  to  work;" 

And  if  the  strength  of  the  whole  must  be  judged 
by  the  strength  of  the  weakest  part,  and  this  will  tend 
to  establish  national  permanence: 

Then  is  it  indeed  time  that  we  as  a  nation  establish 
a  complete  system  of  FREE,  SELF-SUPPORTING  INDUS- 
TRIAL SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES  in  every  part  of  our 
country. 

"The  coming  ideal  of  Democracy  shall  be  to  have 
the  University  go  to  every  man  and  woman  of  the 
nation;  and  we  dare  add  that  it  should  go  to  them  as 
free  as  air  and  as  glorious  as  sunshine.  In  fact,  the 
hands,  while  plucking  from  the  Tree  of  Knowledge 
should  learn  in  the  act  how  to  cultivate  the  Tree  to  its 
fullest  fruition!'  — Ferguson. 


Supplement 

A   RETROSPECT  AND   A   FORECAST. 

By  LYDIA  J.  NEW  CO  MB  COMINGS. 
"Each  change  we  make  in  the  program  must  be  for 
the  increase  of  our  total  human  wealth.  The  abiding 
wealth  of  the  world  is  human.  It  consists  of  beauti- 
ful men  and  beautiful  women  and  beautiful  children. 
The  practical  concern  of  life  is  with  human  beauty 
and  hitman  power.  One  must  begin  with  the  human 
end,  with  the  perfecting  of  the  human  organism. — 
Dr.  C.  Han  ford  Henderson. 

"Success  in  life  means  that  a  man  should  repre- 
sent the  best  civilisation  of  his  time,  that  he  should 
stand  for  intellectual  strength,  moral  strength,  that 
he  should  be  strong  in  his  affections,  amenable  to 
proper  authority,  mindful  of  his  nature  and  artifi- 
cial limitations.  Such  a  man  would  represent  the 
finest  flower  of  human  life,  his  presence  would  be  an 
inspiration  and  an  example  to  all  who  come  in  con- 
tact with  him.  The  fact  of  his  existence  would  mean 
that  every  part  of  him  stands  in  absolute  harmony 
with  his  whole  organization." 

"All  in  all,  the  present  methods  teach  too  much 
and  allow  too  little  opportunity  for  development.11 — 
Dr.  N.  Oppenheim. 

"Any  study  that  is  not  recreative  to  a  growing  child 
is  always  injurious.'" — Dr.  John  Dewey. 

"True  education  is  organic;  that  is,  it  preserves 
and  perfects  the  body,  makes  the  mind  more  intelli- 


158  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

gent,  keeps  the  spirit  szveet  and  sincere" — Marietta 
L.  Johnson. 

ORGANIC  EDUCATION. 

So  far  as  we  know  the  term  Organic  Education 
was  first  used  by  Dr.  C.  Hanford  Henderson  in  his 
"Education  and  the  Larger  Life,"  and  this  book 
was  the  inspiration  and  ideal  in  the  early  days  of 
the  School  of  Organic  Education  at  Fairhope,  Ala- 
bama, the  first  and  up  to  the  present  time  the  only 
school  bearing  this  name ;  although  without  doubt  Dr. 
Henderson's  Open  Air  School  for  Boys,  at  Samar- 
cand,  N.  C,  deserves  the  name. 

The  Fairhope  School  was  started  in  a  very  small 
way  in  the  fall  of  1907,  grew  to  such  proportions  in 
the  first  year  that  it  was  necessary  to  move  to  larger 
quarters  three  times  during  that  year  and  before  the 
end  of  the  second  year  a  gift  from  Mr.  Joseph  Fels 
having  assured  its  continuance,  it  was  deemed  wise  to 
incorporate  and  secure  a  permanent  home  for  the 
school.  This  was  done  by  six  women,  all  greatly  inter- 
ested in  school  affairs.  As  it  was  through  Mr.  Com- 
ings' enthusiasm  and  deep  conviction  that  we  must 
have  a  change  in  school  methods,  coupled  with  a  small 
gift  of  money,  that  has  made  the  school  possible, 
it  was  incorporated  as  the  Comings  Memorial 
School  of  Education,  but  as  the  title  was  rather 
cumbersome  the  first  two  words  were  dropped,  al- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  159 

though  still  retained  legally  and  now  it  is  known 
locally  as  the  Organic  School. 

For  eight  years  it  has  shown  the  better  way. 
Fairhope  has  proven  a  fertile  spot  for  the  planting 
of  such  an  effort  and  Mrs.  M.  L.  Johnson,  who  or- 
ganized the  school  and  has  always  been  at  the  head 
of  it,  has  had  a  free  hand  to  try  out  any  and  all  of 
her  ideas  for  a  better  school  method,  untrammelled 
by  dictation  of  school  boards  or  dictation  of  any 
sort  and  helped  and  encouraged  in  every  way  pos- 
sible by  parents  and  trustees.  Of  course  there  are 
conservatives  in  the  town,  sticklers  for  the  old  sys- 
tem that  is  so  inadequate  for  present  needs,  but 
what  needed  reform  was  ever  introduced  without 
opposition  ? 

One  summer  Mrs.  Johnson  conducted  a  Teachers' 
Class  and  Demonstration  School  in  connection  with 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  Another  summer 
she  had  a  school  in  Arden,  Delaware,  besides  lectur- 
ing each  year  in  many  of  the  larger  cities. 

SOCIETIES   OF  ORGANIC   EDUCATION. 

Early  in  1913  a  Society  of  Organic  Education  was 
formed  in  Philadelphia.  It  is  a  strong  company  of 
prominent  men  and  women  and  has  done  a  great 
deal  of  propaganda  work  and  hopes  to  arouse  suffi- 
cient enthusiasm  to  make  a  practical  demonstration. 

A  society  was  also  formed  in  Fairhope  in  1913  and 
now  numbers  over  200  members,  more  than  half 
living  outside  of  Fairhope. 


160  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

The  Oranges  in  New  Jersey  have  been  greatly 
interested  and  last  fall  Organic  Education  was  in- 
troduced in  one  of  the  public  schools  with  a  teacher 
at  the  head  who  was  under  Mrs.  Johnson's  training 
during  the  past  year. 

For  two  years  Mrs.  Johnson  has  conducted  a 
Summer  School  at  Greenwich,  Connecticut,  and  this 
and  the  Teachers'  Course  at  Fairhope  have  been  the 
only  opportunities  afforded  for  study  of  Mrs.  John- 
son's methods. 

In  1913,  at  Greenwich,  The  Fairhope  League 
North,  was  formed,  its  object,  to  further  Mrs.  John- 
son's work.  This  it  has  done  by  almost  wholly  sup- 
porting the  school  at  Fairhope,  securing  lecture  en- 
gagements for  Mrs.  Johnson,  and  carrying  on  gen- 
eral propaganda  work.  Both  the  Summer  School 
and  the  League  seem  to  have  become  permanent  ad- 
juncts of  the  Fairhope  School.  In  December,  1913, 
at  the  request  of  the  Fairhope  League,  Dr.  John 
Dewey  came  to  Fairhope  to  investigate  the  school 
and  its  methods  and  in  his  official  report  gave  it  his 
unqualified  approval.  More  recently  N.  R.  Baker, 
State  Inspector  of  Rural  Schools  in  Alabama,  vis- 
ited the  school  and  made  a  most  favorable  report  to 
the  State  Superintendent. 

Others  have  become  greatly  interested  in  the 
idea,  notably  Helen  Christine  Bennett,  who  spent 
one  winter  in  Fairhope,  and  through  magazine  and 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  161 

newspaper  articles  and  leaflets  the  principles  of  Or- 
ganic Education  are  being  widely  disseminated. 

'Early  in  1915  a  Fairhope  League,  South,  was 
formed  in  Fairhope  for  the  same  purpose  as  the 
League,  North,  and  to  prevent  the  school  from  be- 
ing moved  to  some  northern  point. 

A  vacation  school  will  be  opened  in  Oak  Park,  111., 
in  June,  1915,  under  the  management  of  two  teachers 
and  a  pupil  teacher  from  the  Organic  School  of  Fair- 
hope.  Mrs.  M.  L.  Johnson  will  give  a  course  of  lec- 
tures during  the  week  preceding  and  the  week  follow- 
ing the  opening  of  this  school. 

So  the  work  has  grown  until  Mrs.  Johnson  and 
the  Organic  School  have  won  a  national  reputation 
and  it  seems  quite  probable  that  a  number  of  similar 
schools  will  be  opened  in  different  parts  of  the 
country  very  soon. 

WHAT   IS   ORGANIC   EDUCATION? 

Not  a  system  with  a  vast  array  of  paraphernalia, 
but  rather  a  point  of  view,  an  attempt  to  fit  the 
school  to  the  child  rather  than  the  child  to  the 
school;  an  environment  where  the  child  will  de- 
velop normally;  where  he  will  grow  mentally  as  he 
grows  physically  without  conscious  effort;  where 
the  brain  can  become  a  strong  physical  organ  before 
it  is  taxed  with  too  early  attempts  at  reasoning  and 
the  physical  is  not  dwarfed  by  too  long  confinement 


162  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

at  any  one  thing  but  instead  is  brought  to  its  high- 
est possibilities;  where  the  child  learns  to  read  and 
to  write  when  he  is  eager  for  it,  even  though  it  is 
not  until  he  is  eight  or  nine  years  of  age;  where 
his  eyesight  is  preserved,  his  hearing  cultivated  and 
his  powers  of  observation  developed;  where  self- 
control  is  the  ideal  and  liberty  is  allowed,  not  liberty 
that  degenerates  into  license  but  the  freedom  that 
always  yields  to  just  laws ;  where  the  best  interest 
of  the  child  is  considered  and  even  his  likes  and 
dislikes  taken  into  account;  where  he  is  put  in  the 
classes  best  adapted  to  his  needs  whether  they  be 
all  in  one  grade  or  not;  where,  most  of  all,  he  does 
the  work  he  enjoys  doing,  for  there  must  be  pleas- 
ure in  work  if  there  is  to  be  profit ;  where  there  are 
no  requirements  for  entering,  no  requirements  for 
leaving,  each  one  having  credit  for  what  he  has  ac- 
tually accomplished;  where  there  are  no  examina- 
tions for  passing,  no  daily  marks,  hence  no  tempta- 
tion to  deceive;  where  the  question  is  "What  do 
you  need?"  not  "What  do  you  know?";  where, 
through  justice,  pupils  learn  to  appreciate  justice, 
through  love  they  learn  to  love. 

"No  profit  goes  where  is  no  pleasure  ta'en, 
In  brief,  sir,  study  what  you  most  affect." 

— Shakespeare. 

This  is  what  Organic  Education  means  today  and 
as  yet  it  has  not  been   thoroughly  demonstrated 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  163 

through  the  entire  high  school  course  and  no  at- 
tempt has  been  made  toward  self-support  as,  so 
far,  it  has  only  dealt  with  younger  children,  but  it 
will  be  a  magnificent  preparation  for  the  work,  will 
make  a  substantial  foundation  on  which  to  build  a 
self-supporting  college  or  university.  It  requires 
all  the  usual  accessories  of  any  well-equipped 
school;  kindergarten,  manual  training,  domestic 
science,  gymnasium,  playgrounds,  gardens,  basket 
ball,  baseball,  tennis;  everywhere  boys  and  girls 
working  together,  whether  it  be  cooking  a  meal, 
building  a  house  or  on  the  play  ground. 

We  have  this  freedom  of  choice  in  our  univer- 
sities and  when  to  the  gymnasium  and  games  of 
the  university  we  have  added  the  real  creative  in- 
dustries then  may  we  hope  for  a  saner  civilization, 
for  men  and  women  prepared  for  their  life  work — 
not  drifting  helplessly  from  one  thing  to  another, 
the  cultivated  mind  demanding  constantly  what  the 
hands  have  never  been  taught  to  supply.  Some 
time  the  ideal  of  this  book  will  be  realized  and  when 
a  man  (or  woman)  has  a  message  for  his  fellow 
man  he  will  not  be  dependent  upon  the  caprice  of 
others  for  his  support,  not  forced  to  modify  his 
message  to  those  who  dole  out  to  him  a  pittance 
from  their  (?)  wealth  but  will  stand  forth  fearless, 
conscious  of  power,  will  be  as  God  intended — "as 
young  gods." 


164  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION. 

Our  plea  is  not  for  vocational  education  although 
it  may  be  a  step  toward  something  better  but  rather 
for  industrial,  or  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  prevo- 
cational  education,  not  the  training  that  prepares 
for  a  special  trade  but  the  training  of  the  hand  that 
aids  in  the  development  of  mental  power,  the  all- 
round  development  of  brawn  and  brain  that  fits  for 
the  later  activities  of  life  whatever  the  field  chosen 
may  be. 

Vocational  training  has  been  going  on  for  a  long 
time  and  we  hear  of  schools  in  connection  with 
stores,  railroads,  shops,  everywhere  that  an  hour  or 
two  can  be  spared  from  work,  all  for  greater  erfi- 
viency  in  the  special  line  of  work.  As  now  con- 
ducted, whether  this  is  regarded  favorably  or  not 
depends  upon  the  point  of  view.  To  the  capitalist, 
the  employer,  it  means  better  workers.  To  many  of 
the  labor  unions,  greater  opportunity  for  exploita- 
tion. To  the  worker — is  he  anything  more  as  a  re- 
sult of  this  training  than  a  better  machine? 

"Survey"  seems  to  be  the  word  of  the  moment 
and  we  find  commonwealths  and  communities  turn- 
ing to  self-study,  studying  both  the  needs  of  the 
worker  and  the  opportunities  for  work  and  study. 
With  this  more  comprehensive  knowledge  it  would 
seem  that  much  might  be  accomplished. 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  165 

At  a  recent  conference  Vocational  Training  for 
Women  and  Girls  was  given  great  attention.  "Two 
dominant  notes  characterized  the  program,  one  the 
importance  of  the  home  and  the  need  of  specific 
training  for  its  management;  the  other,  the  dignity 
of  labor  and  the  need  of  training  for  efficiency  in 
the  industrial  world." 

The  demand  for  skilled  labor  becomes  more  and 
more  insistent  but  with  it  is  felt  the  lack  of  men 
suited  for  foremen  because  of  lack  of  training  in  the 
entire  trade.  It  is  also  difficult  to  get  teachers  for 
vocational  schools  who  know  how  to  teach  as  well 
as  how  to  work.  The  plea  for  teachers  who  com- 
bine hand  and  brain  work  is  still  pertinent  and  we 
need  it  more  than  any  other  one  thing  to  make  our 
schools  as  helpful  as  they  should  be. 

In  some  schools  where  there  is  no  industrial  de- 
partment much  is  done  toward  vocational  guidance 
by  studying  the  work  of  eminent  men  and  women 
and  their  service  to  humanity;  then  the  present 
needs  of  the  world,  the  country,  the  State,  finally, 
of  one's  home  environment  and  then  the  student's 
ability  to  in  a  measure  contribute  to  that  need.  If 
with  this  academic  training  the  hands  could  be 
taught  to  be  skillful  in  general  ways,  it  would  be- 
come a  splendid  preparation  for  one's  life  work 
whether  in  some  profession  or  at  some  form  of 
skilled  labor. 


i66  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

Recently  President  Wilson  appointed  a  Commis- 
sion on  Vocational  Education  and  as  a  result  of 
their  report  a  bill  has  been  introduced  into  both 
branches  of  Congress  giving  help  to  the  states  in 
providing  vocational  education  and  in  training  per- 
sons to  teach  it  with  a  view  to  stimulation  rather 
than  support.  It  must  be  spent  to  "fit  for  useful 
employment"  and  is  intended  to  meet  the  needs  of 
persons  over  fourteen  years  of  age  who  have  al- 
ready entered  upon  or  are  preparing  to  enter  upon 
some  phase  of  industrial  pursuit.  The  commission 
declares  "that  of  more  than  25,000,000  workers  less 
than  I  per  cent,  have  had  adequate  preparation  for 
their  jobs." 

The  bill  creates  a  permanent  Federal  Board  for 
Vocational  Education  with  the  Commisisoner  of 
Education  as  its  executive  officer.  Let  us  hope  that 
this  will  forever  put  an  end  to  the  absurd  notion 
prevailing  in  some  of  our  cities  that  vocational 
schools  should  be  taken  from  the  control  of  school 
boards  and  be  put  under  separate  boards.  We  need 
the  co-operation  of  the  employer  and  the  employee, 
with  their  knowledge  of  the  needs  of  the  work,  and 
the  school  authorities,  with  their  knowledge  of 
methods  of  imparting  instruction. 

The  great  difficulty  seems  to  be  that  the  skilled 
worker  does  not  know  how  to  impart  his  knowledge, 
and  the  teacher  does  not  know  how  to  do  the  work. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  167 

Hence  our  plea  for  industrial  training  through  the 
entire  academic  course,  that  boys  and  girls  may 
have  skilled  hands  as  well  as  skilled  brains  when  they 
choose  their  life  work  whether  it  be  a  profession,  a 
trade,  or  that  of  a  home  maker.  Let  us  hope  the 
Federal  Board  will  have  the  broader  vision  and 
work  for  better  men  and  women  rather  than  better 
machines. 

PROGRESS   IN   TEN    YEARS. 

We  take  pleasure  in  noting  the  progress  made  dur- 
ing the  ten  years  since  this  book  was  first  given  to 
the  public.  In  some  of  the  schools  mentioned  the 
work  has  been  discontinued,  but  no  effort  is  ever  lost 
and  apparent  failure  often  is  really  success.  In  other 
cases  the  work  still  prospers. 

RUSKIN    COLLEGE. 

Formerly  located  at  Glen  Ellyn,  111.,  is  now  located 
at  Ruskin,  Fla.  In  1907  its  founders  acquired  a 
12,000  acre  tract  of  land  and  have  made  the  college 
the  social  center.  By  a  plan  of  co-operation  it  re- 
ceives a  liberal  share  of  the  receipts  from  the  sale  of 
land  for  its  equipment  and  through  its  Industrial 
Guild  the  pupils  are  not  only  self-supporting,  but  can 
lay  by  a  sufficient  sum  to  make  a  fair  start  in  life. 
While  it  is  not  wholly  the  work  of  the  pupils,  this 
seems  to  be  the  nearest  approach  to  the  ideal  of  this 


168  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

book  that  has  been  tried  anywhere.  It  is  self-sup- 
porting and  self-equipping.  It  has  no  endowment 
and  does  not  seek  any.  We  quote  from  their  Bul- 
letin: 

THE    PRIMARY    PURPOSE. 

"Industrial  self-support  while  in  college  is  only  a 
secondary  purpose  in  the  maintenance  of  our  industrial 
policy.  The  primary  purpose  is  educational  and  cul- 
tural, and  to  lead  to  full  support  out  of  college.  No 
one  can  attain  to  the  best  education  or  culture  without 
the  industrial  discipline  which  comes  from  manual 
labor  and  the  doing  of  the  ordinary  tasks  necessary  to 
supply  one's  wants  without  depending  upon  others  for 
either  gratuitous  or  compensated  service. 

"No  young  man  will  receive  a  diploma  from  the  col- 
lege ivho  has  not  learned  to  do  the  primitive  tasks 
necessary  to  make  a  living  with  one's  hands;  such  as 
farm  work,  care  of  live  stock,  and  use  of  tools;  and 
no  young  woman  will  receive  a  diploma  until  she  has 
learned  to  do  similar  work  in  her  line,  covering  all  the 
practical  duties  of  home-maker  and  home-keeper." 

The  work  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  is  so  full  of  interest 
and  encouragement  that  we  quote  at  length  from  a 
report  recently  received: 

"That  part  of  Dayton  where  the  National  Cash 
Register  Co.  is  located,  was  once  known  as  Slider- 
town  and  it  lived  up  to  everything  that  its  name 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION         .  169 

implied.  Rents  were  low  and  no  new  houses  were 
being  erected,  because  there  was  no  demand  for 
property. 

"Yards  were  full  of  rubbish,  tin  cans  and  refuse. 
Conditions  were  so  bad  that  employees  were 
ashamed  to  say  that  they  worked  at  the  factory. 
The  low  dives  with  which  the  neighborhood 
abounded  harbored  gamblers,  drunkards  and  thieves. 

"In  addition,  Slidertown  was  infested  with  shoe- 
less, homeless,  lying,  cursing,  stealing,  cigarette 
smoking  boys  who  delighted  in  breaking  the  factory 
windows  and  in  doing  all  the  damage  that  they 
could. 

"A  picket  fence  ten  feet  high  was  erected  around 
the  factory  to  keep  the  youngsters  out,  but  even 
that  availed  nothing.  The  boys  broke  the  fence  first 
and  the  windows  afterwards. 

"Owing  to  the  unsightliness  and  badness  of  the 
surroundings  the  company  was  unable  to  procure  the 
class  of  help  needed  to  manufacture  a  perfect  prod- 
uct. Skilled  labor  could  not  be  induced  to  come  to 
Slidertown. 

"It  was  necessary  to  change  this  state  of  affairs, 
and  it  was  thought  that  the  most  practical  thing  to 
do  would  be  to  clean  up  the  factory  premises.  Police 
protection  was  promised,  the  picket  fence  was  re- 
moved, the  buildings  were  painted,  grass  seed  was 
sown  and  finally  flowers  and  shrubs  were  planted. 


170  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

"But  no  sooner  had  this  new  work  been  com- 
menced when  the  bad  boys  again  became  trouble- 
some. The  police  protection  which  had  been  relied 
upon  was  inadequate.  As  rapidly  as  shrubbery  was 
planted,  the  boys  pulled  it  up.  They  trampled  the 
lawns  and  continued  to  break  windows. 

"The  question  then  arose  as  to  what  was  to  be 
done  with  the  boys.  The  president  of  the  company 
was  convinced  that  if  given  an  opportunity,  a  boy  will 
do  what  is  right,  and  that  a  boy  is  bad  just  in  propor- 
tion as  his  mind  is  unoccupied.  This  theory  was  put 
into  practice,  and  instead  of  prosecuting  the  boys,  a 
meeting  place  was  set  aside  for  them,  and  they  were 
invited  to  visit  the  company.  They  were  very  sus- 
picious at  first  and  ignored  the  invitation.  Then 
they  were  told  that  there  would  be  things  to  eat  at 
the  meeting.  Needless  to  say,  this  meeting  was  well 
attended. 

"Now  that  the  confidence  of  the  neighborhood 
children  had  been  obtained,  schools  and  classes  were 
started.  The  first  attempt  was  a  kindergarten  for 
the  little  tots.  Then  followed  classes  in  sewing  and 
cooking  for  the  girls.  For  the  boys  there  were 
classes  in  clay  modelling,  wood  carving,  drawing  and 
carpentry.  Finally  egg  shell  gardens  were  com- 
menced. These  are  nothing  more  than  egg  shells 
filled  with  earth,  with  seeds  planted  in  them. 

"The  children  were  immediately  interested.    They 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  171 

wanted  bigger  things  to  do,  so  a  plot  of  ground  was 
cleared  off,  plowed  and  harrowed,  the  boys  were 
given  seeds  and  tools  and  under  a  competent  gar- 
dener were  taught  how  to  raise  vegetables.  This 
was  in  1897. 

"They  became  very  enthusiastic  when  they  found 
that  they  were  going  to  do  something  really  worth 
while.  The  peculiar  part  of  the  proposition  was  that 
the  ringleaders  of  the  gangs  that  caused  so  much 
trouble  were  given  charge  of  the  work,  and  it  was 
found  that  they  led  for  the  good  as  well  as  they  had 
for  the  bad  before. 

"The  garden  idea  is  one  of  the  most  practical 
things  the  company  has  ever  done.  The  seeds  and 
tools  cost  little  and  the  boys  do  the  work.  It  is  far 
more  helpful  and  economical  to  maintain  the  gar- 
dens than  to  be  constantly  replacing  broken  window 
glass  in  the  factory. 

"The  gardens  have  not  only  taught  the  boys  in- 
dustry, but  they  have  had  a  lasting  moral  influence 
upon  them. 

"In  1911  the  boy  gardeners  were  incorporated  into 
a  stock  company.  They  have  a  state  charter  to  raise 
and  sell  vegetables.  They  sell  their  produce,  bank 
their  money,  make  out  bills  and  receipts,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  year  they  declare  dividends.  This  gives 
them  an  excellent  business  training  and  teaches  them 
many  things  that  would  take  them  years  to  absorb 


17*  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

after  once  they  go  into  business.  They  handle  the 
affairs  of  their  corporation  with  very  little  outside 
assistance. 

"They  duly  elect  officers,  a  Board  of  Directors, 
issue  stock  certificates  and  hold  regular  meetings  to 
discuss  crops  and  business. 

"Another  practical  side  of  the  gardens  is  the  fact 
that  the  boys  supply  their  home  tables  with  vege- 
tables during  the  summer  months.  That  is  quite  an 
item,  especially  at  this  time,  when  the  cost  of  living 
is  so  high. 

"In  the  season  of  1913  there  were  80  boys  working 
in  the  garden  and  the  value  of  the  crop  was  over 
$1,991. 

"At  the  end  of  the  season  the  boys  and  their  par- 
ents are  given  a  dinner.  At  that  time  $100  in  prizes 
are  awarded  for  the  best  gardens,  up-keep  of  tools, 
deportment,  attendance  and  the  neatest,  most  com- 
plete record  books.  This  is  quite  an  incentive  for 
the  boys  to  put  forth  their  best  efforts. 

"After  a  successful  two  years'  course,  the  boys 
are  awarded  diplomas.  These  are  excellent  recom- 
mendations should  they  apply  for  work  at  the  fac- 
tory later  on.  Many  of  the  men  now  working  for 
us  received  their  early  training  in  the  gardens.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  hear  what  they  have  to  say 
about  the  experience  they  gained  in  the  gardens. 
Most  of  these  boys  have  been  successful,  thus 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  173 

proving  the  president's  belief  in  the  possibilities  of 
making  useful  citizens  out  of  so-called  bad  boys. 

"Girls'  gardens  were  started  in  1912,  not  for  the 
same  reason  that  boys'  gardens  were  originally 
started,  however.  The  company  merely  wanted  the 
neighborhood  girls  to  get  into  the  open  air  and  to 
have  the  exercise  of  working  in  a  garden. 

"Men's  gardens  were  started  at  the  same  time, 
through  the  kindness  of  St.  Mary's  Institute.  The 
college  donated  the  ground  and  the  N.  C.  R.  Com- 
pany had  it  prepared  for  gardening.  This  is  a  great 
help  to  the  working  man  in  keeping  down  living  ex- 
penses. 

"A  school  in  the  factory  neighborhood  has  been 
making  gardening  a  part  of  its  regular  course  for 
the  last  17  years.  This  was  the  first  school  in  Amer- 
ica to  do  this  work,  although  the  idea  has  spread 
quite  rapidly  since  that  time. 

"The  five  steps  in  a  "back  to  the  farm"  movement 
are: 

"ist.     Egg  Shell  Gardens. 

"2nd.     Boys'  Gardens. 

"3rd.     Back  Yard  Vegetable  Gardens. 

"4th.     Half  Acre  Farms. 

"5th.     Truck  Gardens. 

"After  the  boys  graduate  from  the  N.  C.  R.  gar- 
dens another  course  in  box  furniture  making  is  pro- 
vided. Here  they  are  taught  to  handle  tools.  Out 


174  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

of  old  packing  cases  that  are  of  no  further  use,  they 
are  taught  to  make  small  pieces  of  furniture  and  bird 
boxes.  This  costs  very  little  in  proportion  to  the 
good  that  is  accomplished. 

"If  a  boy  should  not  care  to  follow  farming  as  a 
means  of  livelihood,  while  he  was  raising  his  crop  of 
vegetables  he  is  also  raising  a  crop  of  perseverance, 
industry,  bodily  strength  and  a  good  mental  training. 
Things  that  will  be  of  value  to  him  in  any  line  of 
business  that  he  might  enter. 

"Now  that  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood  were 
working  for  the  company  instead  of  against  it,  it 
was  comparatively  easy  to  reach  out  through  them 
to  their  parents  and  interest  them  in  a  general  clean- 
up movement. 

"Prizes  were  given  for  the  best  results  in  front  and 
back  yard  effects,  window  boxes,  porch  effects, 
fences,  streets  and  alleys.  This  work  has  not  stopped 
by  any  means.  There  are  now  seven  Improvement 
Associations  in  South  Park,  as  Slidertown  is  now 
known.  These  organizations  are  governed  by  the 
neighborhood  people,  but  the  company  lends  every 
encouragement,  by  providing  seeds,  bulbs,  plants  and 
shrubs  at  cost  and  by  giving  substantial  prizes  an- 
nually." 

The  following  is  from  a  recent  letter  from  N.  O. 
Nelson  in  regard  to  the  School  at  Le  Claire,  111. :  "We 
started  the  Educational  School  to  give  a  trade  and 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  175 

education  at  the  same  time.  Half  time  on  each. 
The  work  in  the  long  run  to  pay  the  upkeep  of  the 
school  and  board.  The  sole  purpose  was  to  give  as 
much  education  as  any  young  man  wanted,  at  the 
same  time  making  him  a  competent  workman.  It 
worked  very  well,  was  popular.  We  had  as  high  as 
fifty  at  a  time.  They  worked  in  our  various  shops 
and  also  on  the  farm. 

We  continued  it  two  years  and  until  we  all  agreed 
that  nearly  all  who  came  were  seeking  a  higher  edu- 
cation with  a  view  to  intellectual  employment. 
Scarcely  any  intended  to  follow  manual  work.  As 
the  purpose  intended  could  not  be  attained,  we 
closed  the  school  after  two  years. 

I  am  convinced  that  at  this  stage  of  civilization 
manual  vocations  and  advanced  school  education 
will  not  go  together." 

What  is  this  "stage  of  civilization?"  Simply  that 
we  retain  our  pagan  ideals ;  that  one  who  labors  with 
the  hands  is  still  considered  inferior  to  one  who  has 
in  some  way  obtained  "intellectual  employment"; 
hence  the  school  as  a  "stepping  stone."  Many  a  girl 
who  would  make  a  fine  helper  in  a  home  is  degraded 
into  an  inferior  teacher,  many  a  fine  mechanic  or 
farmer  into  a  third-rate  preacher  or  lawyer  by  our 
false  standards. 

No  account  of  work  accomplished,  however  incom- 
plete, can  leave  out  the  Continuation  Schools  of  Cin- 


INDUSTRIAL   AND 

cinnati,  and  Mr.  Wm.  Wirt's  work  in  Gary,  Ind.,  and 
New  York  City.  The  combination  of  industrial  and 
academic  training,  the  use  of  already  existing  manu- 
facturing plants,  the  utilization  of  room  whereby 
double  the  number  of  children  can  be  accommodated 
than  were  under  the  old  plan,  the  recognition  of  a 
child's  right  to  pursue  other  lines  of  work  than  those 
provided  by  the  school,  show  wonderful  progress. 

Our  Open-Air  Schools,  Public  Playgrounds,  To- 
mato Clubs,  Corn  Clubs  and  a  host  of  other  out-door 
activities  are  no  longer  questioned  and  no  longer 
reserved  for  the  abnormal.  We  have  learnecl  that 
conditions  that  are  good  for  the  aenemic,  the  tuber- 
cular, the  child  who  is  in  any  way  below  the  normal, 
are  equally  good  for  the  normal  child  to  keep  him  at 
his  best.  The  Open-Air  School  at  Bryn  Mawr  is  a 
notable  example  of  this. 

AGRICULTURAL  TRAINING. 

The  district  and  county  agricultural  schools  seem 
to  be  well  established  now,  not  only  in  Wisconsin  and 
Minnesota,  but  in  many  other  states,  but  in  no  case 
so  far  as  we  can  learn  are  they  even  partially  self- 
supporting.  Where  we  had  small  beginnings  and 
very  few  of  them  ten  years  ago,  we  now  have  large 
successes  and  the  acknowledged  need  of  industrial 
education,  if  not  the  practice  of  it,  has  become  prac- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  177 

tically  universal.     Let  us  hope  that  some  plan  may 
be  evolved  whereby  it  may  be  free  to  every  one. 

PREVENTION    OF    IMMORALITY    IN    OUR    HIGH    SCHOOLS. 

One  phase  of  the  value  of  skilled  hands  and  skilled 
brains  has  been  almost  entirely  overlooked,  its  help 
in  the  prevention  of  immorality  in  our  high  schools, 
something  that  is  becoming  quite  appalling.  Every- 
where we  find  teachers  inquiring  as  to  the  cause  and 
the  remedy.  The  cause  is  easily  found.  Natural 
instincts  in  the  young.  The  solution  of  the  difficulty  is 
not  so  simple,  but  we  venture  the  opinion  that  it  will 
not  be  found  in  the  teaching  of  sex  hygiene  or  in 
home  training  until  both  parent  and  teacher  better 
understand  the  nature  of  young  people.  It  is  the 
prostitution  of  God's  supreme  gift  to  man,  man's 
highest  attribute,  the  creative  instinct  debased 
through  ignorance. 

The  creative  impulse  which  under  proper  condi- 
tions would  result  in  sacred,  happy  parenthood,  but 
which  when  unrestrained  becomes  immorality,  would 
in  our  young  people,  under  proper  direction,  be- 
come a  wonderful  force  in  their  lives  leading  on  to 
greater  and  greater  achievements. 

We  have  realized  this  somewhat,  and  we  often 
hear  teachers  speak  of  pupils  working  off  superflu- 
ous energy  on  the  playgrounds,  but  it  needs  more 
than  basketball,  baseball  and  tennis,  fine  as  they  are. 


178  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

It  requires  something  that  is  more  than  recreative. 
It  must  be  something  that  is  distinctly  creative  to 
satisfy  and  stem  this  rising  tide,  and  nothing  at  such 
times  can  take  the  place  of  some  well-directed  indus- 
try where  they  can  create  new  designs  and  new  forms 
and  feel  the  uplift  of  accomplishment  instead  of 
wasting  this  gift. 

Our  schools  must  deal  with  life  as  we  find  it  in 
order  to  make  life,  both  social  and  individual,  better. 
Teach  a  child  to  respect  his  own  body  and  we  pre- 
vent disease  and  immorality.  Teach  him  to  respect 
the  rights  of  others  and  he  cannot  become  a  crim- 
inal. Interest  him  in  his  surroundings,  show  him  the 
causes  of  existing  social  evils  and  he  will  grow  up 
with  a  desire  to  remedy  these  things.  Ignorance  is 
not  a  preventive.  Knowledge  is  the  only  safeguard. 

THE  ARMY  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED 

This  still  increases.  We  find  this  in  a  recent  article. 
It  gives  the  situation  so  exactly  that  we  deem  com- 
ment unnecessary.  "During  the  summer  months 
these  armies  of  unemployed  are  not  so  much  in  evi- 
dence, but  those  who  think  the  armies  are  perma- 
nently disbanded  are  grievously  in  error.  The  men 
who  form  our  unemployed  armies  all  through  this 
country  are  becoming  socially  self-conscious,  and 
they  cannot  be  permanently  disbanded  until  a  way 
is  found  to  eliminate  the  causes  of  unemployment. 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  179 

San  Diego  met  the  I.  W.  W.  free  speech  army  with 
rails  and  tar  and  feathers.  Sacramento  met  the  un- 
employed army  with  fire  engines  and  pick  handles. 
Thus  they  "solved"  their  problems.  When  this  army 
comes  again,  as  come  it  will,  shall  we  have  a  more 
sane  solution  of  the  problem?" 

Many  see  the  solution  of  all  these  problems  in 
some  form  of  economic  or  political  reform,  but  we 
fear  none  of  these  reforms,  much  as  they  are  needed, 
will  be  carried  to  a  final  success  until  we  have  really 
educated  a  few  generations  of  men  and  women  who 
are  capable  of  seeing  clearly  all  sides  of  a  question 
and  deciding  it  on  its  merits  free  from  prejudice  and 
uninfluenced  by  greed. 

"Let  me  lay  emphasis  on  the  opportunity  now  pre- 
sented in  the  United  States  for  observing  and,  if  we 
are  wise,  aiding  in  what  I  think  is  the  grandest  oppor- 
tunity ever  presented  of  developing  the  finest  race  the 
world  has  ever  known  out  of  the  vast  mingling  of 
races  brought  here  by  immigration. 

"So  may  we  hope  for  a  stronger  and  better  race  if 
right  principles  are  followed,  a  magnificent  race  far 
superior  to  any  preceding  it."  — Luther  Burbank. 

A  RACE  OF  AMERICANS. 

They  tell  us  that  in  the  West,  notably  in  California, 
there  is  a  new  race  coming  in.  They  are  losing  the 
characteristics  of  their  ancestors  from  foreign  coun- 


i8o  INDUSTRIAL  AND 

tries,  are  taller,  better  developed,  more  intellectual, 
a  race  of  Americans.  Will  we  have  the  wisdom  to 
train  these  superior  beings  who  show  this  great  im- 
provement in  spite  of  wrong  conditions,  into  men 
and  women  of  such  mighty  stature,  physically,  men- 
tally, morally,  spiritually,  that  the  whole  world  will 
recognize  and  follow?  It  is  our  privilege.  Nothing 
but  the  best  for  every  boy  and  girl  in  the  whole  land 
should  satisfy  us,  and  to  accomplish  this  the  hand 
must  be  cultivated  with  the  head,  and  it  must  be 
possible  for  every  child  to  have  every  opportunity  for 
development  that  he  is  capable  of  using. 

And  what  of  otir  motto 

"More  for  Schools  and  Less  for  Wart" 

In  the  war  now  raging  all  the  horrors  of  the  dark- 
est ages  have  been  reproduced.  Cities  destroyed, 
women  outraged,  children  maimed.  Most  unbeliev- 
able things  are  reported.  So  far  one  ray  of  hope 
comes  from  all  the  darkness  and  carnage.  The  death 
knell  of  the  liquor  traffic  has  been  sounded.  Women 
are  asserting  themselves  and  demanding  that  war 
shall  cease  forever,  and  who  have  a  better  right,  for 
who  suffer  more  than  they  at  such  times? 

Let  us  hope  that  all  this  is  but  "The  death  throes 
of  our  wornout  order,  the  birth  pangs  of  the  new," 
and  that  the  time  is  coming  when  our  motto  may  in- 
deed be  "More  for  schools  and  naught  for  war." 

Fairhope,  April,  1915. 


I 


A  Child  Cry 

By  Netta  M.  Breakenridge. 

AM  a  child,  O  do  not  tie  me  up 

To  schools,  and  desks,  and  books  misunderstood, 
When  I  am  yearning  to  run  out  a-field, 

To  search  the  quiet  of  the  dim,  sweet  wood. 


And  0 — sweet  Mother — do  not  set  me  sums, 
And  those  stiff,  staring  copies  of  some  word, 

Let  me  count  meadows  full  of  clover  blooms, 
And  learn  the  sweet,  free  singing  of  a  bird. 

For  I  have  found  a  Teacher  to  my  mind, 
She  whispers  sweet  instruction  when  at  rest 

I  stretch  brown  arms — bare  feet  in  cool,  deep  grass 
That  feels  the  heart  throb  'neath  her  great  warm 
breast. 

Then  when  the  trees,  the  flowers,  the  sky,  the  birds, 
Have  taught  their  true,  strong  lessons,  I'll  come  in 

With  eager,  hungry  questioning,  and  say, 
<(The  books,  sweet  Mother — quick,  I  must  begin!" 


182  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

Daily  Program  of  the 

School  of  Organic  Education, 

Fairhope,  Alabama 

APPROVED      BY       MARIETTA      L.      JOHNSON       AND       HER 
ASSOCIATE  TEACHERS. 

"The  proper  work  of  education  is  not  to  prune  and 
thwart  and  bend  and  force.  It  is  rather  to  keep  hands 
off  as  well  as  harm  off." 

Organic  Education  depends  so  largely  upon  the 
needs  of  the  individual  child  and  the  ability  of  the 
teacher  to  understand  and  satisfy  those  needs  that 
a  formal  program  for  the  lower  grades  becomes  im- 
possible, but  it  is  hoped  that  this  account  of  daily 
work  may  prove  helpful  to  those  who  are  seeking 
greater  freedom,  more  elastic  methods. 

KINDERGARTEN. 

Much  the  same  work  will  be  found  as  in  all  kin- 
dergartens except  that  the  children  indicate  their 
preferences  and  the  teacher  follows. 

For  instance,  at  nine  o'clock,  the  opening  hour, 
most  of  the  children  are  at  the  tables  absorbed  in 
their  work,  some  have  been  working  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  perhaps.  Sometimes  it  is  card  board  con- 
struction, sometimes  color  work ;  often  the  two  com- 
bined. Shall  they  be  disturbed  and  gathered  into  a 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  183 

circle?  Not  at  all.  That  can  come  later,  when  they 
want  a  change,  but  every  morning  the  circle,  with 
its  songs,  sense  games  and  stories,  is  introduced  and 
the  children  have  a  happy  time.  In  fact,  they  are 
happy  and  busy  all  the  time.  As  a  rule  when  a  child 
is  deeply  interested  in  either  work  or  play,  he  is  not 
interrupted. 

Each  one  has  his  own  place  for  his  own  things  in 
the  closet  and  when  through  using  them  is  taught 
to  put  them  away  neatly.  To  prevent  friction  they 
are  taught  to  respect  the  rights  of  each  other,  and  this 
results  in  good  manners,  politeness. 

Out  of  doors  they  have  a  sand  pile  and  swings 
and  are  allowed  to  use  a  few  pieces  of  the  out-door 
gymnasium  with  the  aid  of  the  teacher.  At  such 
times  as  Thanksgiving,  Christmas,  Easter,  St.  Val- 
entine's Day  and  St.  Patrick's  Day  their  work  is 
in  harmony  with  the  special  occasion  and  there  is 
never  a  dull  moment. 

FIRST    LIFE    CLASS. 

This  is  really  an  advanced  kindergarten.  Here  we 
find  the  most  radical  departure  from  conventional 
methods.  The  children  are  from  six  to  eight  years  of 
age.  No  books  are  used  by  the  pupils  except  as  the 
older  ones  are  taught  to  read  and  then  only  as  they 
express  a  desire  for  it.  The  work  is  almost  wholly 
self-initiated.  They  have  wood  construction  and 


INDUSTRIAL   AND 


gardening  added  to  the  kindergarten  work.  Lum- 
ber, saws,  nails  and  rules  are  provided  and  they 
make  chairs,  book  cases,  racks,  houses,  all  of  their 
own  designing  and  according  to  their  own  meas- 
urements. Some  are  very  crude;  others  well  fin- 
ished, but  each  is  commended  as  having  done  his 
best  and  encouraged  to  further  effort.  Most  of  this 
work  is  done  out  of  doors,  as  it  was  found  that  it 
disturbed  the  pupils  in  the  other  rooms  in  the  build- 
ing. The  clay  and  color  work  is  remarkably  good. 
Some  May  baskets  decorated  with  tissue  paper 
showed  very  good  taste  in  the  selection  of  colors. 

In  their  gardens  each  one  decides  upon  the  size 
desired,  measures  it  off,  with  assistance  if  needed, 
and  takes  entire  care  of  it.  Liquid  and  dry  meas- 
ures are  provided  that  they  may  gain  some  idea  of 
values  in  this  way. 

They  have  toys,  balls,  bean  bags  and  have  been 
especially  interested  in  making  kites.  They  use 
chairs  and  tables  for  automobiles  and  street  cars. 
The  tables  turned  upside  down  and  filled  with 
chairs  and  these  occupied  by  children  give  them 
pleasure  for  a  great  many  hours.  The  tables  and 
chairs  were  made  in  the  manual  training  depart- 
ment and  are  guiltless  of  paint  or  varnish  or  it 
might  not  be  wise  to  do  this,  but  why  surround 
children  with  things  too  good  to  use? 

At  one  time  they  were  greatly  interested  in  mak- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  185 

ing  reins  ornamented  with  bells.  A  number  of  them 
were  provided  for  the  Christmas  sale  and  were  dis- 
posed of  readily.  They  were  made  of  coarse,  soft 
twine  and  were  done  in  a  loose  chain  stitch,  using 
the  fingers  instead  of  a  crochet  needle.  Each  one 
was  allowed  twelve  yards  of  twine,  first  measuring 
one  yard  on  the  edge  of  the  table  with  a  foot  rule, 
then  using  this  yard  measure  twelve  times.  They 
also  string  beads  of  different  colors,  beginning  with 
two,  five  or  ten  of  each  color,  thus  gaining  number 
conception. 

The  art  teacher  has  put  crayon  drawings  of  famil- 
iar objects  on  the  board  and  some  of  the  copies  are 
surprisingly  good.  Every  day  the  pupils  are  gathered 
into  a  circle  for  some  kind  of  group  work  but  not  at 
any  stated  time. 

Their  greatest  delight  is  in  stories,  read  or  told 
to  them.  Often  they  illustrate  these  in  the  sand  box, 
and  with  clay  or  crayon,  sometimes  dramatize 
them.  We  name  a  few  of  the  books  that  are  found 
specially  interesting,  both  when  read  to  them 
and  as  they  handle  the  books  themselves.  Some  of 
the  children  can  repeat  almost  the  entire  story  and 
love  to  do  this  with  the  open  book  and  pictures  be- 
fore them: 

The  Children's  Book,  by  Horace  Scudder. 

Nonsense  Book,  by  Edward  Lear. 

Peter  Rabbit  Series,  by  Beatrix  Potter. 


i86  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

Tom  Thumb  and  Johnny  Crow's  Garden,  Illus- 
trated by  Leslie  Brooks. 

Caldecott  Picture  Books. 

In  My  Nursery,  by  Laura  E.  Richards. 

Child  Lore  and  Dramatic  Reader,  published  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Work  is  planned  when  it  seems  necessary,  the 
teacher  is  always  ready  to  help  when  needed,  but 
it  seldom  happens  that  the  children  are  not  eager 
for  something  of  their  own  devising. 

SECOND   LIFE    CLASS. 

The  first  half  hour  in  the  morning  is  devoted  to 
singing,  folk  dancing  and  out-door  gymnastics,  not 
as  a  rest  when  the  children  are  tired  from  mental 
occupations,  but  as  a  means  of  development  at  a 
time  when  they  are  at  their  best.  In  the  afternoon 
they  have  a  quiet  half  hour  before  beginning  their 
more  active  work.  A  fundamental  conception  of 
number  is  gained  largely  through  use  in  other  occu- 
pations and  much  time  is  devoted  to  the  mechanical 
operations,  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication,  di- 
vision, decimals  and  compound  numbers.  Their 
reading  consists  mainly  of  historical  and  geographi- 
cal stories  and  legends,  with  very  simple  stories  for 
the  youngest  pupils.  The  children  of  one  class  were 
greatly  interested  in  the  French  and  Indian  War  and 
went  to  the  gullies  where  they  built  forts  and  repro- 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  187 

duced  many  of  the  scenes.  Members  of  another  class 
built  a  railroad  of  which  they  had  read  and  then  a 
miniature  Panama  Canal.  Another  time  it  may  be 
something  quite  different  that  holds  their  attention 
and  interest.  The  gullies  are  a  never-ending  source  of 
delight  for  nature  study,  dramatic  representation  or 
"just  a  good  time." 

There  is  work  in  both  oral  and  written  expres- 
sion. They  have  larger  gardens  than  the  First  Life 
Class  and  are  given  simple  instruction  in  botany,, 
soils  and  germination.  They  go  to  the  manual 
training  building  for  their  wood  working.  They 
are  from  nine  to  eleven  years  of  age. 

THIRD    LIFE    CLASS. 

Here  we  find  the  pupils  from  twelve  to  thirteen 
years  of  age,  corresponding  to  the  usual  grammar 
grades,  and  preparing  for  the  high  school.  They 
share  the  half  hour  of  singing  and  folk  dancing  with 
the  Second  Life,  use  books,  have  gardens  and  are 
allowed  the  full  use  of  the  gymnasium.  They  have 
more  difficult  manual  training  work  and  the  older 
ones  have  cooking. 

Botany,  nature  study  and  the  sciences  receive 
great  attention.  The  use  of  clay  is  encouraged  for 
relief  maps  and  in  moulding  objects.  They  read 
aloud  from  both  story  books  and  books  of  history, 
geography,  and  science,  and  illustrate  and  dramatize1 


i88  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

much  of  their  work,  and  so  are  led  along  by  easy  and 
natural  methods  until  at  fourteen  years  of  age  they 
are  well  prepared  for  high  school ;  and  besides  the  us- 
ual book  knowledge  have  had  experiences  which 
tend  to  give  well  developed  bodies,  deftness  of  hand 
and  a  general  knowledge  and  culture. 

THE    HIGH    SCHOOL. 

The  Course  of  Study  does  not  differ  radically 
from  that  in  any  good  high  school  and  when  one 
has  finished  the  course  he  is  ready  for  college  or 
university. 

The  pupils,  wherever  possible,  work  in  self-or- 
ganized groups  and  decide  for  themselves  what 
work  will  be  most  beneficial.  Those  in  the  English 
class,  for  instance,  are  writing  books.  Each  pupil 
selects  a  title  and  writes  the  first  chapter,  then  passes 
it  on  for  a  chapter  by  each  of  the  others.  When  it  re- 
turns to  the  first  one  he  or  she  will  write  the  final 
chapter,  cover  it  according  to  individual  taste,  and 
own  the  book.  By  the  time  this  is  finished  some 
other  work  will  have  been  planned.  In  botany 
they  bring  to  class,  for  analyzing,  flowers  of  their 
own  choosing,  and  each  one  selects  those  preferred 
for  an  herbarium.  The  same  freedom  of  choice 
is  allowed  in  the  drawing  class  and  rarely  are  two 
pupils  drawing  from  the  same  object.  Those  in  the 
biology  class  are  raising  pigs.  In  the  chemistry 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  189 

class  one  boy  is  experimenting  with  nickel  plating, 
another  with  manufacturing  hydrogen.  So  the  in- 
dividuality of  the  pupil  is  cultivated  and  the  work 
becomes  more  vital  as  well  as  less  formal.  The  out- 
door gymnasium  is  fairly  well  equipped.  They  have 
basket  ball,  baseball  and  tennis.  The  gardens  are 
quite  extensive. 

The  greatest  liberty  is  allowed  the  pupils.  They 
pass  about  and  in  and  out  of  the  room,  speak  quietly 
to  each  other,  even  prepare  their  lessons  out  of 
doors  if  they  wish.  A  strict  regard  for  the  rights 
of  others  is  maintained  and  pupils  who  have  been 
in  the  school  some  time  can  be  trusted  absolutely, 
others  who  come  and  go,  mistake  liberty  for  license 
and  occasionally  abuse  the  privileges  given  them. 

Written  tests  are  frequently  given,  but  no  exami- 
nations for  passing  from  one  grade  to  another. 
Pupils  are  put  in  classes  best  adapted  to  their  needs 
regardless  of  grades.  No  desks  are  used  in  the 
school,  tables  and  chairs  being  substituted. 

DOMESTIC    SCIENCE. 

There  are  five  cooking  classes  and  they  give  a 
noon  lunch  each  day  to  from  fifteen  to  twenty-five 
people.  They  plan  the  menu,  buy  the  supplies,  al- 
ways taking  into  account  what  is  already  on  hand 
and  are  limited  to  ten  cents  per  person.  Three  of 
the  classes  work  under  the  supervision  of  a  teacher, 


190  INDUSTRIAL   AND 

two  of  them  cook  and  serve  the  meal  alone.  Us- 
ually there  are  two  vegetables,  one  of  them  often 
served  as  a  salad,  and  bread  and  butter  with  either 
dessert  or  soup.  No  guest  is  limited  as  to  quan- 
tity. This  department  is  self-supporting.  Sewing 
is  also  taught  to  those  who  care  for  it. 

MANUAL   TRAINING. 

In  this  we  find  a  great  variety  of  work,  from  the 
simplest  objects  made  by  the  Second  Life  Class  to 
well-finished  writing  desks,  book  cases,  tables,  and 
porch  swings.  The  tables  and  many  of  the  chairs 
used  in  the  school  are  made  here.  As  everywhere, 
the  pupils  are  allowed  great  freedom  of  choice. 

This  occupies  the  largest  and  best  equipped  of 
the  buildings,  of  which  there  are  four;  one  for  the 
Kindergarten  and  Domestic  Science  (this  was  built 
almost  entirely  by  the  pupils),  one  for  the  Life 
Classes  and  one  for  the  High  School  and  Chemical 
Laboratory. 

THE    TEACHERS''    TRAINING    CLASS. 

This  gives  a  thorough  course  in  History  of  Edu- 
cation, Psychology,  Child  Study  and  Methods,  with 
practice  teaching  in  the  Kindergarten  and  Life 
Classes. 

For  the  closing  exercises  this  year  the  entire 
school  will  take  part  in  an  out-door  presentation  of 


VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION  191 

the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamlin.  This  was  suggested  by 
a  member  of  the  Training  Class  and  will  be  worked 
out  by  the  entire  class. 

This  is  just  a  brief  outline  of  what  is  done  from 
day  to  day  in  the  spring  of  1915.  Another  year  the 
application  may  be  quite  different  but  the  underlying 
principles  remain  unchanged.  Self-control  and  self- 
initiative  are  the  watchwords  throughout  the  school. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


NOV 


FEB    6 


12Nov'57LS 


RECD  LL: 


119 


